Day 9: Boat Yard Inn to Wigan.

Wednesday 15 July.

As we had more than 25km to walk today we got up early and were on the canal again by 9am. The weather was sunny, with a cool wind, ideal for walking.

Within less than a mile we were walking beneath the M65 but we could hear it long before and long after reaching the bridge. The noise was quite intruisive.

The area around the canal was farmland and we passed under numerous bridges which seem to

have been built solely to give farmers access to their land, after it was disrupted by the canal. All had a very similar construction.

We passed quite a few places with permanent moorings today and met our first group of locks near Whittle-le-Woods shortly before passing under the M61. The bridge was so long it was more like a tunnel.

The walk had a much more rural feel today. Even when we were passing through Chorley a lot of the housing was screened  by hedges. In other areas views of the canal were made a feature of new housing subdivisions. We asked locals for a place to have lunch near the canal, to save our legs. They suggested Frederick's ice cream parlour. We had tea and toasted current teacake.

 

After lunch we were walking through country side

in the company of dog walkers and cyclists. The good weather really brought out the citizens but the activity along the canal itself was less than yesterday. There were however lots of people working on their moored boats. 

When we reached Top Lock outside Wigan we found a possible reason for the reduced canal traffic. Some one had damaged the lock gates on one of the locks nearer the town centre. From Top Lock down to the damaged lock there were about 18 individual locks! The area around the lock was clean and green and largely litter free. It was only after we crossed a major road into town that litter and graffiti again became common place. Our hotel was only about a kilometer from the canal.