Today we went through the Harecastle Tunnel.

That’s half an hour of navigating the boat through total darkness apart from the lights on the boat and the little pinpoint that it the end of the tunnel. Just to make it more interesting, in places repairs to the tunnel have used up almost all the headroom, so you have to crouch down to avoid getting knocked off the boat.

Soon after leaving the tunnel we made a sharp turn from the Trent and Mersey to the Macclesfield canal. Almost at once there is a very different feel to the place, from the urban T&M to the rural Maccy, from Staffordshire to Cheshire, and from the North Midlands to the southern parts of The North.

The Maccy takes a couple of sharp turns and then crosses over the T&M, which has gone down two locks in the mean time. This is the view from the aqueduct looking down on the T&M.

Here’s where we are moored up for the night.

Only a slender strand of barbed wire is preventing Paula from inviting the cows onto the boat.