Three Bears descend "Heartbreak Hill"

Hello Everyone!

I am sorry I haven't been blogging for over a week again but I have been on a great boating bear adventure with my friends Hanley and Endon and our human guardians, Polar and Grizzly.

One morning, Polar packed everything we would need, and us bears, into our bear basket and we went down to the wharf where Uppie the narrowboat lives.  She put it in the 'cratch' at the bow of the boat and sat us where we could see everything, including Grizzly casting off at the start of our journey.

As I have mentioned before, the water is orange where Uppie lives, because there is iron in it.  I asked Polar if this meant it was good for you if you drank it, as you need iron to make your blood work properly, but she said it had other nasty things in it too and would probably make us quite sick small bears.

'You will get all the vitamins you need from your normal bear food,' she said.  'We have clean water on the boat too.  Don't drink canal water!'

We were heading north-west along the Trent and Mersey Canal towards a town called Middlewich.  It was not long before we reached the first lock.  Grizzly and Polar take it in turns to work the locks, usually doing two or three each before swapping over.  They were going to be very busy over the next couple of days as we were at the very top of the Cheshire Locks.  It is sometimes called Heartbreak Hill because there are so many locks.

Because this used to be a very busy canal, some of the locks are in pairs, side-by-side.  We wondered if there were ever races between boat crews and fights at the single locks over whose turn it was to go up or down first.  On our journey, there were not many other boats about and everyone was very friendly.

We stopped for our first night on board Uppie about half way down the long flight of locks.  Even though we hadn't had to do any work, we felt very tired from watching Polar and Grizzly at work, so we soon settled down to sleep.

Poor Polar and Grizzly had another busy day of working locks to come.  They had to work through thirty-one locks to get to Middlewich and there were four more, including a double one (which we could share with another boat) to get through the town.  We waved and cheered to encourage them, especially when it was rainy.

When we reached the bottom of the locks and while the humans went to do some shopping, I showed my fellow bears around the boat.  Some of it was exactly how I remembered it from my journey north from the Thames last summer, but there was something new - a whole shelf of small-bear-sized books!

There are Beatrix Potter story books and also books about factual things, like nature - plenty to keep us entertained and educated on our travels.  Polar bought some of them in second-hand bookshops but most of them used to belong to an aunty of Polar's, who died soon after I met Polar and Grizzly and before she could meet us.  Polar says she loved animals and would have been a great friend to us bears.  We think she has been, as she left us our library.

Soon, thanks to dear old Aunty Jean, we were all settled down with something interesting to read. 

When Grizzly and Polar got back we set off again, across the Cheshire Plain.  The land was flat and there were no more locks. 

That night, we moored on the edge of a Flash, a big open pool of water created when the land sinks and the canal floods into it.  This happens in Cheshire because there old are salt mines under the ground and sometimes they collapse.

Hanley Bear woke up very early and, standing on Grizzly's flat cap, looked out to see the sun rise across the water.  He saw a kingfisher too, and a big flock of geese.

'It's grand being a boat bear!' he cheered.

Soon Polar and Grizzly were up and about too and, after breakfast with toast and marmalade, we set off again.

'Where are we going, Sonning?' asked Endon, who was a long way from home and starting to feel a little bit homesick.  I fetched one of the map books and showed him and Hanley the route of our canal.

'We might be going to Manchester,' I said.  'Although I think I heard Grizzly talking about cruising the River Weaver.  It runs along the valley beside the canal a few miles further on from here but I don't know how we get onto it.'

'Maybe Polar and Grizzly will have to work us through more locks?' said Hanley.

'It says boat lift on the map,' I told the other bears.  

'I wonder what one of those is?' said Endon.

We would soon find out!