The Standedge Tunnels are four parallel tunnels through the Pennine hills at the Standedge crossing between Marsden in West Yorkshire and Diggle in Greater Manchester in northern England. Three are railway tunnels and the other is a canal tunnel. It the longest, deepest and highest tunnel in the country and is 3 miles 418 miles long. A Canal & River Trust person drove the boat while Steve, also attired in life jacket and hard hat, stood by in case of emergency.
One of the Canal & River Trust men gave Hilary and I a lift back into town to Marsden Bakery to get some of their legendary sausage and bacon baps to fuel our long trip through the tunnel.
For more details see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standedge_Tunnels. It would take us 1.5 hours to chug through, with a 45 minute gap before the next boat was allowed to follow, to allow for the diesel fumes to clear. Trains rumbled through the adjacent railway tunnels. It is remarkable for something which opened in 1811. Tunnellers from one end were Lancastrian and from the other end from Yorkshire. They didn’t quite meet in the middle and there is a bit of an S bend.
In the old days there would be two legger, lying on planks to walk there way along the walls, taking 3 hours. They did 4 trips a day and it was considered a better job than working in a factory or mill.
We emerged at the far end where canoeists were waiting to paddle through the tunnel.
We stopped for lunch and a discussion about how far we would go today.
We got to Stalybridge and moored up across from a huge Tesco Extra.
We went to the Wetherspoons pub, The Society Rooms, and our evening meal went in a blur. One of the posters celebrated Beatrix Potter, a famous resident of the town.
It was here on Thursday (24/06/2021) morning that Hilary got a ping from the NHS COVID-19 App to say that someone had a positive test and one of the establishments that Hilary had checked into in Worcester. Steve got some rapid flow tests from the Tesco pharmacy and they showed negative results. Hilary walked to the nearest testing station at Stalybridge Railway Station for a more thorough test and got a negative result texted to her on Friday morning. However, she was still expected to self-isolate for 8 days. Awkward on a narrowboat!
Magnet fisherfolk had recovered a dead bicycle from the canal and it lay alongside us.
Thursday saw us onto the Ashton and through Manchester where we passed onto the Rochdale Canal.
We filled up with water at Fairfield Junction Canal & River Trust Services.
No time to stop at the quaintly named Strawberry Duck pub as we were on a mission.
An army of the prolific Canada geese patrolled the Etihad Stadium, home of Manchester City. A far cry from the old days when comedian Bernard Manning joked “on match days if you approach the Man City ground there will be two queues, one very long and one short. Don’t join the long one, that’s the queue for the chip shop”!
Helen recruited two young helpers on our passage through Manchester.
We passed out of the city and were now in bandit country where we were told to keep moving and not moor up. Sadly we ran out of water and had to retreat through three locks to a relatively safer area at Newton Heath.
An egg hit the Hereford and there was evidence of drug taking around the locks. Luckily it started raining and the sinister bystanders scurried home. Shouting and swearing from a violent confrontation issued from a canal-side house adjacent to us.
It was up to Simba the lion, our mascot and lucky charm to protect us and we stayed the night unmolested.
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