Today's weather forecast was for light showers, Lancashire must have a different definition of light showers to me. We left our moorings at Barnoldswick about 8.00 to head down through the Foulridge tunnel and reach the Barrowford Locks by the time they opened at 10.00. At this time the rain was light so no great problem. When we reached the locks we found they were already open at 9.30 so we made swift progress down through the seven locks and on towards the "delights" of Nelson and Burnley. By this time the rain was, in my opinion, neither a shower nor light, it was chucking it down! I'm not complaining, we need the rain. At least once we were through the locks I could make the excuse that I had some baking to do and disappear under cover. The idea of me baking always goes down well with Chris and Ray so they had no objections. The rain got so heavy at one point they contemplated stopping but decided they couldn't get any wetter so carried on. It is a pity the weather wasn't better as some of the views once we were clear of the urban sprawl were fantastic even with limited visibility.
From Burnley the canal meanders along never far from the M65, I had intended to moor as far as possible from the motorway but it was impossible to hammer in mooring pins there so we ended up only about 200 yards from the motorway, luckily not too noisy.
Tomorrow we will have the pleasure of visiting Blackburn, a place my brother holds a low opinion of (understatement of the century), at the time of writing I'm not in a position to offer an opinion. A supermarket stop is in order as there is no shop near our intended moorings once we go down Wigan flight. Apparently the locals welcome you with a skip yard which stinks and is fly infested.
The sunset tonight held a promise of a better day tomorrow.
Today's journey 16.6 miles, 7 locks and 2 tunnels.
So far we have travelled 386.1 miles, 410 locks, 47 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 11 tunnels.
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