Not very happy with 'CaRNT'
Not very happy with the Canal & River Trust (CaRNT). It keeps telling you that it will offer assistance on the 'daunting' Wigan flight so I phoned a couple of times (on the expensive number as it won't let you have the individual office numbers any more) and emailed.
Heard nothing
Had a lovely reply saying could I meet two ladies at its offices on Friday but explained that as a single hander I had already arranged to share the flight with another single hander but would like help. They seemed really pleased there were two of us going up—should have listened to those alarm bells at that point!—and eventually agreed there was going to be staff about on Easter Saturday having arranged to see two other ladies up the flight, but they would ring me about 10 o'clock to see how I was doing. It is now nearly five days later and I have heard nothing....
Well, we'd done about five locks when these two clowns in straitjackets (no, sorry, they were life jackets!) appeared walking down the locks towards us and asked if I had requested assistance. Great, we thought—and I explained what had been discussed with the Wigan office. But no, one of them decreed they had to meet a lady outside their offices who had paid to be helped. What a load of tosh that turned out to be and those two men should have been ashamed of themselves.
Four working one boat
As they walked off we noticed a woman setting the lock behind us. The 'lady boaters' CaRNT were helping turned out to be a couple who pressurised and hassled us as, assisted by both male staff, made up four people speedily working one boat through though behind three people taking two boats up ahead of them. The woman on this 'paying' boat (though not all I soon found out!) did go ahead and open a couple of gates for us but then expected us to go back and wind a bottom paddle for them at every lock as we left (between 40 and 50 turns each to get them up!) though four of them working the one boat up!
If and when the CaRNT staff did come forward to the lock in front as we had yet to leave it, all they did was stand at the bottom gate waiting ready to wind the paddle to empty the lock again for the 'paying boat', though to be fair I think I recall one gate being closed and one paddle raised for us out of over 150!
Never lifted a paddle for us
Even when they took it in turns to wander past on their way to breaks, they never lifted a paddle for us or even unlocked any (all had those horrible anti-vandal lock devices which slowed us even more, many of which had been smashed by the very same vandals they were meant to foil and were inoperable).
Whilst I appreciate this is a discretionary service on CaRT's behalf and we certainly have no right to expect help at locks, it was disappointing to see that no-one had the sense to redistribute this manpower to help all those trying to use the flight that day. A sad day for boating and common sense.
Sad state of the canal through Wigan
It was distressing, too, to see the sad state of the canal through Wigan—not the locks themselves (many leaks but lots of new gates) but the truly disgusting amount of litter, rubbish and dog muck in and around the canal. It felt like there was such a huge amount of rubbish in some of the locks there would never be room for a boat as well! A chap with a leaf blower appeared around the middle of the flight but quite where he was blowing this rubbish was unclear—probably off the towpath and into the canal judging by the vast amount of it in there.
Very sad indeed.