The Journey Home

I have been such a busy small bear that I have been neglecting my blog, and I still haven't told you about the last part of our journey home from Manchester. 

After we got home from Liverpool, we cruised back along the branch of the Bridgewater Canal from Runcorn to a quiet spot not too near the motorway, where we could watch the trains on the West Coast Main Line.  We saw long freight trains and fast passenger trains, before settling down for a bedtime story and our sleeps.

In the morning, Grizzly and Polar took us back onto the main line of the Bridgewater and through the Preston Brook Tunnel to the Trent and Mersey Canal.  We didn't like it, as there are no lock-keepers to make sure nobody is coming the other way.  Instead, you have to follow instructions about the time you can go in, which should mean boats heading north don't meet southbound boats in the middle!

Not far south of the tunnel, at Dutton, are some lovely moorings with views across the Weaver Valley, where we were cruising this time last year.  They were built when the canal had to be repaired after a breach a few years ago.  We sat on the fence and looked for trains on the viaduct across the river in the far distance. 

The following day, we reached the famous Anderton Boat Lift, which had taken Uppie and all of us down onto the Weaver the previous autumn.  Today, we were staying on the Trent and Mersey but we still stopped nearby, to visit the site and enjoy a delicious veggie cooked breakfast.

Hanley Bear was delighted to find another of his Transport Trust red wheels!

In the museum, we learned about the history of the boat lift and about the volunteers who campaigned to save it - we even met one of them, who is now a very old man.  Then we enjoyed our breakfast, out on a sunny terrace overlooking the lift.



Polar carried us down to the river for a better view of the lift and to see Saturn, a Shropshire fly-boat.  These were express narrowboats, if you can imagine such a thing, pulled along by horses in the days before there were engines.

We had a gentle cruise on from there to Billinge Flash, one of our favourite moorings, where we always see at least one kingfisher. 

The evening was very still and the following morning there was a beautiful sunrise.

There are no locks until Middlewich, so Polar let us help her decorate some painted spoons, while Grizzly steered Uppie.  We painted the patterns along the handles and Polar said she thought we did very well and should be proud of ourselves.

We decided we liked Middlewich, as it has a pub called the White Bear, where they do very nice Sunday lunches.  Grizzly says there is a Folk and Boat Festival there in May - maybe we will go to that next year?

Polar and Grizzly had lots of locks to work Uppie through after Middlewich, so we bears stayed in the saloon where it was quiet and safe while all the water was rushing around outside.

There are thirty-two locks between Middlewich and Kidsgrove and, although you can get up all of them in a day, Polar and Grizzly like to break the journey into two or three days, so we don't rush.  We stopped before we reached the two deep locks at Wheelock on our way back home.

That still left twenty-eight locks to get back to Kidsgrove.  Many of the Cheshire Locks are in pairs, because this used to be a very busy route and this allowed boats to pass each other rather than having long queues build up at single locks.

Sometimes we went to see what was happening outside and sometimes we stayed inside, reading our Observers books.

We knew we were nearly home when the water started to turn orange, due to the iron in the Harecastle Tunnel.

When we got back to Kidsgrove, Polar let us nap in their bed while she packed everything away and Grizzly fetched the car to ferry our luggage back home.

We closed our little bear eyes and wondered where our next journey might be...

On and Off the Mersey Ferry

I have been a busy small bear recently, having new adventures to tell you all about one day, when I have finished telling you about my summer narrowboat adventure.

You might remember that we visited the Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool in my last blog.  That was not the end of our trip to Liverpool, by any means.  Polar and Grizzly took us down to the waterfront where we saw an amazing thing - a new canal linking the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the historic Albert Dock area.

 We wanted to see where it went but Grizzly said we had another exciting thing to do first - we were going to have a cruise on a Mersey Ferry.  We couldn't believe how colourful it was!

Once we were aboard but before we cast off, Polar let us out of the bear bag, but only in a small section of the boat which was covered in and has glass windows, as she was worried the smaller bears might be blown overboard if they went out onto the main deck.

 It was very exciting when the engines growled into action and we pulled away from the Jetty near the famous Liver Building, but when the boat started to move, we found we couldn't stay safe on the ledge where we had chosen to sit, as the vibration of the engine and movement of the waves almost bounced us off!

 It was safer and more comfortable back in the Bear Bag.  Polar turned us around so we could see where we were going.

We cruised north along the waterfront, right up to the old docks where huge warehouses used to store tobacco and sugar, but are now being turned into apartments and hotels.  We were amazed when Grizzly told us he and Polar had steered Uppie through those docks on their way to Liverpool in 2014.

Then the little ferry went right across the estuary to Wallesey, where we docked to let some people get off and others on.  We bears felt a little bit poorly, as the boat was bobbing about on choppy water while it waited, which is something narrowboats don't usually do.

We were pleased to be on our way again and, soon afterwards, we docked at Birkenhead, where Polar and Grizzly got out to have lunch and a quick look around.

Right next to the jetty for the ferries is another museum about the Second World War, but this one has three sections of a huge submarine on display outside.  Grizzly explained that it was a German U-Boat and that these used to go underwater to sink allied shipping across the Atlantic.

'Booooo!' we cried, and we gave it our hardest hard stares.  Following on from our visit to the Western Approaches Museum, we knew how scary it was for sailors during the war to know there might be submarines hunting them and preparing to sink them.

You could see inside the U-Boat where it had been cut into sections.  It is all rusty now but we thought that even when it was new and clean, it would not have been very nice to be inside one, knowing that ships and planes were looking for you and trying to sink you.

We thought it was very sad that that humans, who are quite clever creatures really, kept having wars and making boats to fight each other, instead of being friends and making nice, brightly coloured boats for fun trips out, like our Mersey Ferry.  

Polar says we will go back to Birkenhead another day, as an old tram runs at weekends, taking people from the ferry up to a transport museum, which we bears would like very much.


When our ferry came to collect us and take us back to Liverpool, we sat outside on the deck, but safely tucked in our Bear Bag, enjoying the sunshine and the views of the city and letting the sea breeze ruffle our fur.   

Grizzly and Polar told us that there are Mersey Ferry trips that go right up the Manchester Ship Canal to Salford Quays.  We thought that on a bright, sunny day like that day was, that would be a fun thing for small bears to do.  However, our ferry journey was almost over.

We were not too sad, as this meant we could explore more of Liverpool's waterfront.  We climbed up on one of the funny 'Super Lambana' animals outside the Museum of Liverpool Life, although they were very slippery and hard to sit on in the breeze.

Then Polar carried us along to the Albert Dock.  While we had tea and cake outside the Tate Gallery, we watched some narrowboats making their way through to the moorings in Salterhouse Dock.

We hope that, one day, we can go to Liverpool by narrowboat, as Grizzly says it is a very exciting journey.

After tea, it was almost time to get the train back to Runcorn.  We were sad small bears, as we had really enjoyed our visit to Liverpool, but Polar and Grizzly have promised to take us back again as there is much more to see and do in this wonderful city.