March - Ribble Canoe Club

Page 8 November/December 2003
Macclesfield
Revisited
Sunday 28th September, 2003
Paddlers: Tom and Robert Byrne, Clive
and Janet Robinson, Janet Porter, Hazel
Gilkes and Helen James.
The somewhat reduced numbers on this trip
were due to a combination of illness, late
holidays and other commitments.
We paddled on the Macclesfield Canal in a
northerly direction last year during some
pretty cold weather. This time we started once
again at Whitley Green but turned south.
Having found a perfectly good canal side car
park we might as well make use of it
especially as there are no locks for at least
eight miles. The weather was bright and
sunny when we set off although there were
some chunky looking clouds on the horizon.
As it turned out these never really bothered
us, we had a little drizzle but on the whole
most of us kept warm.
kayaks. I think we got in the way a bit: do we
care? Not much.
Shortly after setting off we came to the first of
the three mills we were to pass today all of
which were built at about the same time as the
canal. One was a textiles mill, one a silk mill
and the last the old Hovis mill; all have been
beautifully restored though now fulfil new
functions.
Getting into the boats at Whitley Green was
interesting. The canal side here is quite high,
several of us were stung on nettles, there were
a lot of moving narrow boats and some sort of
canoe marathon was going on with folk
breaking the speed limit in double racing
The canal is fairly overgrown considering the
amount of traffic that uses it making it narrow
in places. Whilst this could be a bit of
nuisance when boats approached from the
opposite direction it did give it a wilderness
feel – or it would have done if it hadn’t been
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