Monday, June 13, 2022

Preston Brook and onto the Bridgewater

Monday 13th June 2022

We are using an ‘app’ new to us. It’s called Merlin Bird ID and is brilliant and free. You can use it to listen or look at pictures to identify wild birds you can hear or see. Last night, we recorded for 26 seconds to try and identify what bird was singing outside the boat – during that time it identified a long tailed tit, a eurasian blackbird, a common wood pigeon as well as the song thrush which was the bird we wanted identifying.

We also tried using the picture of the bird in the top left corner of yesterdays tree carving picture. Graham thought it was a raptor of some sort and Brenda thought it was a Red Kite. All of the suggestions the app made were likely to have escaped from captivity if it was going to be right. Much better quality photos required!

We set off from a very peaceful overnight mooring and made our way past Acton Bridge Black Prince yard - they’ve changed their logo and the colour scheme of their boats – boo!  Just north of here CaRT are installing piling - I hope it'll be for public use and not restricted to boat yard moorers.


 

Then on towards Preston Brook tunnel where we passed through the stop lock at 11am, just as the two boats waiting fror the tunnel were untying. Unfortunately, once we had travelled about halfway through at normal speed we caught them up and found that the leading boat was the same one that held us up at Saltersford yesterday. The second half of Preston Brook tunnel was done on tick-over.

 

Once out, the boat immediately in front of us pulled over to moor whilst the leading boat turned left towards Runcorn. We continued on through a 16 peg fishing match, where we spotted this wonderful fishing hat being sported by one of the competitiors before arriving at Walton Hall where we moored just past bridge Hough’s bridge (13)

 


We have passed this place many times before and always wondered what was there. A Cheshire CC run estate, previously owned by the Greenall family, it is now a free visitor attraction with gardens, a children’s zoo and playpark. We had a good walk around both zoo and gardens and then ended our visit by buying a Mr Whippy ice cream before heading back to the boat. Brenda was happy because she could have ‘sherbet and sauce’ on hers.


 

We then moved on and moored for the night just before Grappenhall bridge (17) as we liked the description in Nicks of the area around St Wilfreds church so fancy a walk around there after dinner.

G&B

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