Saturday & Sunday (Sept 17 & 18)

We decided that we would travel from Preston Brook to Nantwich. Our route would take us southerly down the Trent & Mersey Canal, southwesterly down the Middlewich Branch & then south at Baybridge Junction towards Nantwich.

Our route follows yellow dots

This trip does not cover a great deal of distance but it goes through a variety of rural & urban locations & involves 3 tunnels and 9 locks in each direction.

A surprise for us was that we encountered our first major tunnel & lock less than an hour after we left the dock in Preston Brook! Thankfully Shea was good enough to to take us through these parts.

The Preston Brook tunnel is 1239 yards from end to end. It is only wide enough to accommodate boats going in one direction at a time. Boats headed south are allowed to enter the tunnel from the top of the hour to 20 minutes past. Boats headed north are allowed to enter the tunnel at the bottom of the hour to 10 minutes before the next hour.

It was a real treat to go through the tunnel but we were sure glad to reach the other end!

On Sunday morning we passed through the next two tunnels, at about 500 yards each. We knew what to expect while traveling through these. A fun part of our passage was that the boat following behind us cranked up his stereo & was playing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah while we were in the tunnel. The sound was fabulous.

…… and we did think “Hallelujah” when we exited the tunnel back in the daylight!