65_ Ice___ Cream on the Canal

10th September 2019

​We have left our mooring at Haigh Hall and continue on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. We travel East on the 9 mile lock free pound known as the Lancaster Pool.
We enjoy the pleasant and quiet isolation in the lightly wooded area heading away from Wigan. We pass the village of Adlington , call in White Bear Marina to top up with coal and diesel as the nights are beginning to get quite chilly and moor up by bridge 73 to visit Fredericks Ice Cream Parlour which comes highly recommended.  Here we spend a pleasant couple of days before embarking on the next leg of our journey.  
We pass through some heavy woodland before approaching Chorley, where the canal sidesteps the town which is on the West Bank of the canal and we pass Botany Bay Boatyard where 16 months ago we launched Dunworkin, here we pass some lovely old refurbished textile mills.  The M61 crossing the canal continues to run close by. 
We soon find ourselves at the junction of the old Walton Summit Branch, which used to be part of the Lancaster Canal originally projected to run south from Preston to the Bridgewater Canal, and the bottom of Johnson’s Hill Locks just as it starts to rain.  
However undaunted we press on up the 7 locks, admiring the lovely views of surrounding countryside and Pat does it his way.  Finally we moor up at he top of the locks opposite the boaters facilities and next to the the Top Lock pub.