2nd July 2013 - Haskayne to Burscough

Liverpool had been lovely, but inevitably with a city there was a background (sometimes quite loud) noise all night.  It was lovely to be back in the country and have a night of total silence. We had a leisurely start to the day - Meander came passed at 10am, not quite the 9am they had promised us.  We set off shortly afterwards, heading to Heatons Bridge for 12 noon to meet Julie.  In the event she was there first and walked down the towpath to meet us - a little sore after a fight with her dentist that morning.  Moored up and had lunch - soup in sympathy with J's poorly mouth.

Our plan for the afternoon was to pump out the loo tank at Burscough but when we got there it was raining hard so we moored up to wait for the rain to stop. Neither of us fancied pumping a loo tank in the pouring rain!  After 30 mins we were politely informed that we were on someone elses moorings and could we leave!  Well it had just stopped raining so no reason to stay.  Unfortunately tank outlets were on the wrong side of the boat, requiring us to go passed the pumpout point and turn the boat around 1/2 mile further on.  Returning to the sanitary station the pump out went without a hitch.  For some reason 3 lads loitering beneath the adjacent bridge (glue sniffing?) were driven away - possibly from the rich aroma of the pumpout!

That left us pointing in the wrong direction!  So we had to return in the direction of Liverpool looking for somewhere to turn (canal = 40ft wide, Ceilidh = 54ft long).  We managed to turn by putting the bows onto the slipway of the Slipway pub.... and they had a spare mooring.... and it was raining.  So we stayed. As the mooring was only for their patrons, of course we had to become their patrons.

The Slipway pub outside Burscough.  Chez Ceilidh.