My narrow escape (Home)

The journey out of Liverpool Liverpool was the destination for this trip, so eventually now it was time to turn around and start the long journey back to London. Time to do the Liverpool Canal Link in reverse. I won't bore you with a detailed description like on the way in. Suffice to say that it was still amazing. Did I mention that I loved this? On the way in my friend and I had very nice company in the locks, a couple from Essex with their young neighbour. As my friend had left, I was alone on the way out. In the locks I was paired with Mr. Grumpy Man and his dog. Me (enthusiastic): Isn't this amazing?! I loved it here. How did you find it? Mr. Grumpy Man: Nah, didn't like it much. Not dog friendly. I prefer the country side. Err, a little issue with the route planning perhaps? That was the end of the conversation. We did the next five locks in silence. Otherwise it was a fairly uneventful trip. I staid over in Litherland again to do my shopping. Now that I k

Having already covered part of the way out of Manchester, the journey continued on the Bridgewater Canal's Leigh Branch up to the junction in Wigan, where it meets the great long Leeds & Liverpool Canal which took us all the way into Liverpool. I will be returning via the whole length of the Bridgewater Canal, so will write a bit more about it then. Leeds & Liverpool Canal history Both the Bridgewater and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal are wide canals with big locks fitting two narrowboats side by side like on the Grand Union down south. Despite being wide, both canals are amongst the oldest in the system. The Leeds & Liverpool canal was started around 1770 to create a connection over the Pennines between Liverpool and the emerging industrial centres of Leeds and Bradford. Through various rivers in the East, it also connected Liverpool and Hull by canal. As is the case for virtually all of the earliest canals, it was the brain child of James Brindley. Strange