Heading South in the Sun Shine.

After a good nights kip after my exertions the previous afternoon the morning broke with beautiful sunshine once again. I still hadn't any noise from the alpacas in the field opposite.

We set off at our normal time of around 1000 and really enjoyed the slow trip along the canal, sometime in sun and some times in dappled shade. Everywhere looks much nicer when the sun shines doesn't it!

I heard a lot of excited barking from one of the many fields that had been scalped to take a silage crop. Looking up I saw these dogs hurtling down the field and plunge straight in to the canal. they were so happy in the water and just each other up and down the shallows. The walker with them didn't seem to mind, but once we passed the ran back up the field and looked to be getting into a large SUV so she must be used to it. I am not really a dog person and I'm not sure what type these are, or whether she was a breeder or just likes this type of dog as I count five, and they are not small!

 The views of distant hill and really green fields set of the lovely clouds in the sky. They are signs of a front, but it skirted us today and ran up the other side of the Irish Sea.

The Lancaster canal is a contour canal and here you can see that we are heading from right to left, but to the right is the next canal bridge going almost in the opposite direction The views to the Bowland Fells are nice too.

This colourful chap was making a right racket calling to anybody who would listen.

This is one of the three swing bridges on the navigable Lancaster canal and as you can see seems to be permanently open these days. That means there is only one to open. It makes a big difference to the Leeds/Liverpool Canal

We saw our first Canada geese goslings this day, as well as our first Coot chicks.

Just like the b]dogs in the previous photo these pigs heard us coming and came running to see us pass. There is something very amusing and cute about running piglets. They are very curious animals, but again like the dogs soon got bored and were off again.

Past the entrance to the basin at the top of the Ribble Link we approached the services that are close to where the Savick Brook passes under the canal and there is this canal house. We wanted to wind before tying up at the services so had to carry on to Ashton basin close to the present end of navigation. This length is navigated even as much as the rest of the canal so is even shallower.

A lot of the house have made maximum use of their canal side position. This house had made a great fist at setting up a bar. It made me think of holidays. I was tempted to moor up and knock on the shutters to see if they were open.

We moored up on the last space and filled up with water and then got ready for me to go home for a quick visit to guide one of my history walks around our town of Hedon. Lots of history, lots of stories and very reasonable at £4!