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Ding Dong Good Morning campers

Well it looks like Canal River Trust (they are the people who look after and maintain our waterways in England ) and what a terrible job they are making of it very poor maintenance and lack of investment in what is needed has left the North west cut off from the rest of England. Over the past few years they have spent millions on to links that is the link to get boats into the heart of Liverpool and the link to get boats across the Ribble to join the Lancaster Canal now because of their inapt management both these routes are now out of commission due to lack of water or CRTs poor management of water levels. As we all know water flows down hill now, the Leeds and Liverpool canal is the longest canal in England 127and a half miles of most is down hill so you would think that Wigan being the junction that connects the Northwest to the rest of the country would have plenty of water unfortunately due many factors that is not the case CRT have had to take obscene measures by closing the locks into and out of Wigan. Which in reality has left hundreds of boats with nowhere to go. Except for the route between Wigan and Liverpool which can be done in a matter of 4 days but that does not cover a cruising season of 6 months as normally do. However we are the lucky ones for those Boaters between the to of the Wigan flight and lets say Skipton have a even shorter range locks are closed through Blackburn Colne Burnley and Barrowford. Its very much like booking a holiday then finding out you FLIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELED 

We have our grandchildren joining us next week and we are sneaking back into Liverpool Docks its a three days sail 5 days in Liverpool and 3 days sail out. But that is all dependent on water levels which I am very concerned about as the farms around here are extracting millions of gallons of water out of the canal daily and I wonder if this extraction is sustainable ?????

So you think Boating is the idyllic life style believe me its not what you see on the TV it maybe south of Birmingham but even the waterways see a north south divide

We are taking it easy living the dream though we do get a few nightmares we still wake up in some beautiful places meet some beautiful people and enjoy what we have

God bless and thank you for listening to my rant

I will take some pics today of our location Scarisbrick west Lancs

Buggerlugs

Buggerlugs at rest