Galgate and walk to Glasson

Saturday 29th August
Uneventful but pleasant trip to Galgate and I do believe there was no rain! On a trip like this with no locks Geoff likes to hog the tiller, but I have no complaints as after my domestic duties (lest my readers get carried away with the thought that I am on holiday!) I generally take my chair and paper up in the cratch and watch the world go slowly and gently by. Depending on the temperature outside I can either open up to the elements or close up and be snug inside.

Sod's Law, no boats all morning and you meet the first one at a bridge!

No trouble with mooring at Galgate which we reached just before lunch. The original intention had been to carry on down the 6 locks of the Glasson Branch but having been told that there was a rally on this weekend and it was very crowded we decided to walk down first and see for ourselves. We set off in sunshine, luckily fortified by our umbrellas just in case. The wind had been blowing strongly all morning and soon after we started the rain came back. We managed to use the umbrellas so long as we pointed them into wind!! We saw one narrowboat and 2 plastic boats going down and saw how hard the paddles and gates were to operate.

We passed by Glasson Church which was holding it's flower festival so I had a short detour to admire the lovely arrangements....the talent of some people always amazes me as I cannot arrange a simple vase of flowers, let alone some of the complicated and beautiful arrangements.

And so to the basin itself which was much larger than we had imagined. A lot of sea going boats as here they lock out into the Lune Estuary and thence to the Irish Sea.

All the mooring space appeared to be full with boats two and three abreast.

However the biggest off put from our point of view was the wind. It was blowing much more strongly down here and there were almost white horses. The picture above doesn't really convey the strength of it, but it's the best I can do.
On the other side of the lock, the tide is out and the river Lune looks quite benign and peaceful

The walk back was largely in the driving rain and was quite exciting when I went under a bridge and the funnel effect of the wind blew my large umbrella inside out. After that I gave up using it! By the time we reached Lock 1 at the top we had walked about 6 miles which my back was telling me was too much so I am surprised I was still standing in the picture above.......luckily the rain had ceased by then.

Geoff has more stamina (or something) than me and after a cup of coffee he departed on a recce of Galgate for church and pub for the morrow. The Church at Glasson had an 0830 and 7pm service, which wasn't quite what we wanted apart from the fact that I could not attempt the walk two days running! He eventually returned to report that the service was at 11am and there was a choice of places for my Sunday Lunch.