Canal walk

Today I'm taking you back to the beginning of July. After our few days away in York, we spent most of the rest of my holidays pottering about and running errands, partly because the weather turned unsettled. However, we took advantage of a sunny day to go for a walk along the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

Like our walk back in April, we started at Botany Bay but, this time, headed north. The foxgloves were in full bloom and looked glorious against the blue skies, though you'll notice the sky changing throughout the walk.

Further along, the path had just been mown so most of the vegetation had disappeared!

This dog wished we would disappear and was none too pleased at me taking a photo of him. He was too cute to miss though :)

We admired these houses right on the canal bank - I bet they cost a pretty penny!

I also admired the stained glass on an old barge.

At this point, you reach a junction where the Lancaster and Leed-Liverpool canals joined. However, the Lancaster canal was filled in not far from here because of the building of the M61 motorway (I only found this out later). We crossed over the first part of the bridge to pick up the main path which continues from the middle part.

This section of the canal is called Johnson's Hillock locks. There are 7 locks in the flight, rising 65 feet. Unfortunately for us, there were no canal boats going through that day as I do like to watch them.

I assumed this wider bit was for the barges to turn around, though it might be where they wait for their turn to go through the locks as there are several still to go.

We thought these information boards were really interesting and a great idea. I'm endlessly curious so like to know what I'm looking at.

In this case, it mentioned the hook which tow lines were passed over to help pull boats through the lock.

In general, the canal walk was lacking in interesting plant life but occasionally we came across beauties like this fox and cubs, which must be one of my favourite plant names!

We liked the name of this boat. Can you hear the song in your head?

And this one also made us smile :)

Lovely views of the valley.

I was also surprised how few butterflies we saw but then we came across a patch of thistles and saw two, a meadow brown...

...and a large skipper.

Oh, and a large patch of tree fungus.

At this point, we turned round and headed back to Botany Bay.

Our reward was afternoon tea in the cafe - a bargain at £9.95! The cake with the sprinkles was my choice :)

Gatekeeper (also known as Hedge Brown)

I'm hoping to get out and about on lots more walks over the next couple of weeks. I have 3 days to work and then am off until 1 September - I can hardly wait! It will also give me a chance to catch up with some blogging and tell you about a couple of other days out, including one on my birthday last Sunday :) Otherwise, I plan to relax with reading, baking and crafting.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. x