Leaving Scouse-land - and drugs ...

Catch-ups of our visit to Liverpool will have to wait as we left yesterday after a fantastic 13 days around this fascinating city!  I will post our adventures though over the next week or so - something for you to look forward to - I hope!

Reversing from our mooring just before 08:45 ...

… a bit chilly this early so Molly is cuddling down under her cover!

Looking back under Stanley Dock Bridge nb Nuggler is following us out

The first two boats are now in the entrance of Mann Island Lock and nb Web of Dreams and ourselves are attempting to stay out of the cross wind while we await our turn.

The builders have nearly completed this building - yesterday I noticed this ‘cherry picker’ right at the top of the building - certainly not a job for me!

Our turn now

Under that lovely bridge keeping the bouys to our right

Water or air bubbling fiercely up - I wonder what that’s about?

Passing the disused locks into the River Mersey

I’ve been impressed by the design of lamp-posts around the dock area of Liverpool and these cormorants are taking full advantage of these!

Sharp right here ...

Ooh, why are they waiting there?

The restaurant boat is also waiting and this guy wanted to know how many boats were coming through - there were 11 boats on the way out today ...

Glad he kept over as there wasn’t much room left and those struts were low indeed!

Another two boats waiting around the corner, they should have entered Salthouse Dock yesterday but apparently swing bridge 6 was out of commission for a while yesterday and they had to wait overnight at Litherland Services.

The factory opposite the Tobacco Warehouse is being remodelled into flats

Sharing the bottom lock with nb Web of Dreams

Another of those stunningly designed lamp-posts

We had to wait about 40 minutes for the convoy of boats and CRT to arrive at Netherton Swing Bridge (6) meanwhile the engineer was still working on the gearing to get it open.  After about another 10 minutes or so he was ready to test it - it eventually opened and off we go again ...

… the rest of the conway close behind.

Less than 10 minutes later the rain was like stair-rods ...

… and out came the umbrellas for the steerers and the crews disappeared inside!

I didn’t last for long though and the hot humid weather returned.  Here we’re going through Hancocks Swing Bridge (9) which was operated once again by CRT staff - thanks guys - a brilliant job!

Lovely to look at but we don’t want it up the weed hatch!

Last swing bridge of the day for the convoy - the first to arrive swung the bridge and then had to wait for 8 boats to go through before they could close it - fortunately they were mooring up here anyway.(two boats had stopped at Litherland services).

We carried on to Melling Stone Bridge (11) as I’ve arranged a Tesco delivery for Saturday.

Between the swing bridge and our mooring we saw a large amount of black/grey bin bags floating on the surface ...

… and thought that they’d been blown there ...

… perhaps from the local farm.

It was soon after putting in the mooring pins that the ‘area bailiff’ passed in his canoe and explained that last night about 11:30 he saw a van stop on the top of the canal bridge, open the rear doors and throw, I thought he said 225 bags, but perhaps I misheard and it was 25 bags, into the canal and that they were full of drugs. He also said that this is not the first time it’s happened and that sometimes they’ve been dumped on the canal side (perhaps if boats were moored here).  He said that he’d rung the police at the time and they had attended the scene this morning, and that the water authorities had also been informed.  I rang CRT to see if they were aware and was told that they were and that as soon as men were available they would come out to clear up.

It’s 2pm as I write this and still no-one has arrived - we are beginning to disbelieve what we’ve been told - surely the authorities cannot be ignoring the fact that these bags, if full of drugs, can be left in the canal for ‘another interested party’ to lift out ..

… or indeed for the remainder to sink and pollute the water and kill the waterfowl and fish????