Tues- travelling
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- I was planning to travel to Stratford to see some plays, but I found they were only at the weekend. So I decided to go to Northwich first. I first took the bus south out of Liverpool as far as I could to Widnes nd then across the river Mersey to Runcorn. Then that was a pain in the neck : I'd reached the end of the Liverpool transport area and despite Northwich being 10 miles away there was no transport and I had to walk miles to get to place to hitch cos the roads were all ring roads and express ways and it was raining. But I got a ride quickly then .. the rain was bad.
| Wed - Northwich|
- Walking around the town at night I found a lot of Tudor looking wattle and daub buildings which were actually only 100 years old and labelled "lift-table buildings" what's that mean ? - At the Salt Museum I found out that more than 100 years ago they had been pumping so much of the underground salt water to evaporation factories that all over the area there were often collapses in the ground, hence there was a law that buildings had to made of wood frames so that they didn't collapse. Indeed buildings were often jacked up or moved.
- A pretty interesting story salt had been recovered from local springs by the Romans, then by the industrial revolution huge amounts of salt were being recovered for use in the chemical industries, then they discovered underground rock salt mining. These days the area still has lots of ICI factories and Polyethylene was invented in the town.
| Anderton Boat Lift |
- I walked 2 miles through the canal park to the Anderton Boat Lift. Here boats can transfer from the navigable river 20m up to the Trent and Mersey Canal thus can travel all the way to the East Coast.
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British crazy property prices
The still functioning huge ICI factory across the river from the 100 year old boatlift
a boat coming half way
| Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope
- Unlucky with the buses back etc eventually hitched to Jodrell Bank , arriving after it closed... and got this photo
- Hitched into Macclesfield
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