Firstly, in spite of having (we thought) more than our share of wet weather, we had a great time, and – having given ourselves 2 weeks for the journey with 2 nights in Liverpool – at no time did we feel pressurised, or having to cruise ‘excessive’ hours. Generally, the scenery was far more rural and rural-looking than we expected, and many of the towns through which the canal passes had made efforts to make a feature of the canal. We encountered only a few problems enroute. The most difficult one was one of the locks on the Wigan flight (Lock 75 I think) which (we were told by CRT man) has suffered from subsidence, and as a result the bottom gates open with difficulty. We were advised not to open fully, otherwise they jam on the cill. Unfortunately, a crew coming down when we were going up had opened the gates fully and we had great difficulty closing them.