Boating with the holiday boaters - Trent & Mersey and Middlewich
The last post ended somewhere around the first few miles of the Trent & Mersey Canal starting from Preston Brook. To get back to London the fastest way would have been to go all the way down the Trent & Mersey and then around Birmingham to the East. As I didn't want to go back the same route (and definitely did not want to do the Harecastle Tunnel again!) I took a detour to branch off the Trent & Mersey onto the Shropshire Union Canal (aka the Shroppie) to go south and then come back to the Trent & Mersey later. This post covers the journey from the Anderton Boat Lift on the Trent & Mersey to the Shroppie main line. Anderton Boat Lift Not far from the three tunnels at the beginning of the Trent & Mersey there is another wonder of the canal world to be found: the Anderton Boat Lift, the only working boat lift in England. The boat lift connects the canal with the River Weaver Navigation 15m down in the valley below. Before it was built, chutes were u