Guess where we are.
[Laughs] Blackpool?
We're where we left you last week, we're in Whaley Bridge basin in High Peak.
The last time we were here, vlogging from here anyway,
was in, was it September 2019?
It was.
It was just a few weeks after the nearby Toddbrook Reservoir almost collapsed
after the floods and I made a little vlog, little documentary vlog, a docu-vlog
You did.
If you've not seen that, I actually quite like that.
It's very good.
There should be a link up above Shaun's head if you're watching on a computer
and you can watch that one.
But Toddbrook is one of two reservoirs that feed the Peak Forest and Macclesfield canals
and most canals have got locks and lots of leaks,
so they need a steady constant supply of water
Yeah.
and that's what Toddbrook does, Toddbrook Reservoir feeds the
Peak Forest Canal along with Combs Reservoir.
But after the. . .
faff
It was a faff.
where it nearly collapsed,
they had to virtually empty Toddbrook Reservoir
to keep it safe while they do repairs
and it's been, well it's coming up to two years.
Yeah
so I had a little wonder up there with the drone to see how things are getting on.
[Music playing]
The last time I was here,
the RAF and emergency services had just managed to stop the damn wall from collapsing.
There'd been days of torrential rain and that caused the water level to rise so high
that it overflowed the auxiliary spillway and it washed away large pieces of the dam wall itself.
It was actually feared for a few days that the dam would collapse
and flood hundreds of homes and businesses in Whaley Bridge.
Over the first few days they managed to drain over a billion litres of water from the reservoir
into the River Goyt
and RAF chinook helicopters dropped 600 tons of aggregate
down into that massive hole that had appeared in the dam wall.
To keep the water levels as low as possible,
the source of the reservoir, Todd Brook
has been diverted away from its usual course, which is just about a kilometre away from the dam
and it now runs along a bypass channel down the northwest ridge of the reservoir
and it drops down into the River Goyt.
It's weird to see this part of Todd Brook empty like this
but seeing it without much water gives you a sense of
just how much power the water's got when it's in flood.
I mean just look at these rocks,
to be able to throw around thousands of tons of rocks and boulders and trees like this,
imagine being caught in that when the brook's just a torrent of flood water rushing down the valley.
The spillway that was almost washed away back in 2019,
it now has a new wall it's just over a metre high
and it reaches down into the clay core and that forms a water-tight seal, it makes it safer.
The wall's got these two pressure relief holes
and they reduce the force on the wall if the water level gets too high again.
The spillway itself's also been repaired,
the joints where the water could get in and undermine the concrete have been sealed up
and the spillway is now safer than it was when that near disaster happened 18 months ago.
It's gonna be nice to come back in another couple of years and hopefully
see the reservoir full of water again
and the sailing club open doing their activities
and the spillway looking a little bit less like a big hole that's been plugged up.
[Music playing]
So Toddbrook can't supply the Peak Forest Canal with water at the moment,
so it relies on water coming in from Combs Reservoir,
which is a bit further away and there's a bit of a faff going on there as well.
Why, does it go up hill?
There's [Laughing] yeah.
Actually, that's more true than you think.
There's a blockage in the pipe between Combs Reservoir and the Peak Forest Canal here at Whaley,
so they can't get water through the usual means
Ahh!
But they've been a bit clever about it,
what they're doing is they're actually letting water into the River Goyt from up there
and then just behind us you can probably see the water being pumped back out of the river
and into the canal and that's how they're keeping the canal in water.
That's what's called, in water.
[Shaun] In water? Keeping the canal in water.
[Colin] and when there's a breach that's when the canal's waters break.
[Laughs]
It can, because it can give birth to a new canal if there's enough water can't it.
[Laughing]
I've had enough of this are we off?
Come on.
[Music playing]
Most boaters turn left up at Whaley junction
and go down towards Bugsworth Basin, but we love Whaley Bridge just as much
and there's the most gorgeous cake shop literally two minutes walk from the boat.
The basin hasn't changed much since it was built back at the turn of the 19th century
and the transshipment warehouse is where goods used to be transferred from trains to boats or vice versa
and this one was originally three stories high but a story was taken off in the early 20th century.
It was extended in the 1830s when the Cromford and High Peak Railway arrived in Whaley Bridge
and this allowed trains to come in from the Midlands, unload the cargo onto boats
and they'd cruise off bound for Manchester and the ports at Liverpool.
This place hasn't changed much in the last 190 years,
the trains would come up and down the railway, down the Whaley Bridge incline
and over the bridge towards the warehouse.
And if you look carefully you can just make out the original route of the railway as it crossed the bridge.
It's literally five minutes from Whaley Bridge junction,
so if you're coming down here by boat pay a visit
and even if you haven't got a boat, you can still walk down sit by the basin and enjoy a picnic
or maybe even get one of those cakes.
[Music playing]
Back in 2019 the people of Whaley Bridge had a lucky escape,
skirted disaster,
thanks to the professionalism of the emergency services
and of course the community of Whaley Bridge.
but about nine miles north east of here,
another disaster was about to unfold.
[Music playing]
today I'm taking a walk over the Derbyshire Peaks to Bleaklow, which is near higher Shelf Stones
and would off to explore the chilling story of an abandoned plane crash site
that's laid almost undisturbed for over 70 years.
[Soft piano music playing]
Three hours after setting off walking across the moorland,
we finally spot the first signs of the crash site.
[Soft piano music playing]
I've come to see what's left of an old B-29 aircraft from the American Air Force,
it was called Overexposed
and it crashed here in 1948 killing all 13 people on board.
[Soft piano music playing]
The aircraft was on its way to an American Air Force base near Warrington
just west of here
and the pilot was descending to come into land
but he couldn't see through the thick clouds
and of course this blooming great moor was in the way
and the plane crashed.
[Soft piano music playing]
Even though the crash happened over 70 years ago,
most of the wreckage is still here on top of the moor
and it's recognisable, you can see parts of the fuselage
and the wing and the engine it's quite creepy.
It's a fair walk up here if you want to come and see it, but on a day like this it's well worth it.
[Soft piano music playing]
[Sound of the boat engine]
You might have noticed that that wasn't Shaun walking with me up the hills,
I had a chaperone for the day.
He did,
socially distanced.
and tell the people why I had a chaperone.
Because I thought I'd broken my foot the day before,
I walked down the steps tripped over Otis' toy and. . .
Ouchy
Ouchy?
Ouchy.
You were crying.
An hour later, no I wasn't [Laughs]
An hour later, I couldn't put my foot down on the floor and had to go to hospital
Yeah, we sent him to A&E in a taxi
and as soon as he got there he was all right again,
so they sent him home with his tail between his legs.
Yeah, it was fine.
[Music playing]
You're probably getting used to this landscape as much as we are.
They probably not better than us now.
I think this is the third or fourth time we've been up and down here
and it's because of the restrictions.
We got onto the Peak Forest Canal in the middle of December
and we've been here for, well next week it'll be three months.
Yes.
So we've only been moving every couple of weeks to get water
and food and get rid of the rubbish.
Which luckily we can do all those down at Whaley Bridge,
there's bins and there's toilets and his water point and there's Tesco, so it's been great.
So every couple of weeks we come down, do all our stuff and go back to the original mooring.
And what we try to do is film as much as we can in each of these,
because it only takes about half an hour 40 minutes doesn't it?
To do one take.
To do one take, yeah. [Laughing]
So we try and film as much, so we've been doing multiple vlogs in each journey aren't we?
We have, yes.
To try and get the content up
and thanks for sticking with us, because we've not been able to
show you really much different for the last couple of months.
But hopefully,
fingers crossed,
in just over a couple of weeks, we might be able to move again.
WooHoo!
[Music playing]
This building on our right hand side has been standing since 1839,
it was a beer house when it was built
and it served ales to boaters and people who lived around here for over 100 years
before the police had it shut down in 1908
because of disorderly conduct
Drunk and disorderly?
I don't know,
But there wasn't actually anything going on,
the police were just using the powers given to them by the government
to try and slow the amount people were drinking,
so they used these disorderly conducts warrants to shut places like that down.
WOW!
So it wasn't a pub after 1908.
But then a few years later, the local green grocer who used to trade from Furness Row,
the little row of cottages we showed you last week,
he moved in there and turned it into a green grocers
and then it was a private house, but the back bit, the extension,
apparently is a holiday let now.
Oh right.
[Music playing]
[Bridge mechanism clanking sound] [Music playing]
[Music playing]
[Music fading]
[Sound of Geese and splashing water]
And we're back.
We do like this mooring, it's been like home for the last three months, virtually hasn't it.
It has.
and it's where we've scattered Dillon's ashes,
I'll put the what three words in the video description,
so if ever you're around here, you can say hello to him.
Yes.
And we love it here,
it's got good internet, it's got good solar on days like this, hence the hat
and it does feel like home after three months doesn't it?
And look at that.
Who cannot love that.
But hopefully, fingers crossed, in two or three weeks the lockdown's going to be over,
which means we can move again.
It does YAYY!
But where are we going to go, because once we get to Maple,
we could go back down to Macclesfield but we've done that,
about four times haven't we.
We could go down the Marple flight of locks, towards the Ashton Canal
and we could go into, well we could go up the Huddersfield, but we've done that.
So we could go left and go into Manchester,
Yeah.
the Rochdale Canal, we could do the Bridgewater, we could do
the Leigh Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool.
There's so much.
There's quite a few choices,
but there's also quite a few stoppages.
So we're gonna have to wait and see what's going on in a couple of weeks,
check the stoppages and I think then make a plan.
So we genuinely don't know at the moment where we're going,
so come back next week.
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Four o'clock on a Friday.
I'm not saying nothing.
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What do you mean, for a change.
We're off in for our tea, going to take Otis for a quick walk
and we'll see you next week, take care of yourselves, bye bye.
Ta-ra.
[Music playing]
13 aircrew weren't about to be so. . .
la la la la
but, [sighs] forgotten.
Nine miles north east of where we are now
Argghh!
Why is it always the short bits that are the most dickifult.
[Laughing]
[Loud engine noise] maybe not
another disaster was about to unfurl.
Is unfurl a word.
It's not is it.
Arrgghh!
Unfold.
Yes! How many times did that take.
Have you seen the two little cuts on his face?
he's got one there, one there.
He wasn't paying attention to what he was doing
and got clouted in the face by a tree.
No it wasn't a tree.
Well what were it you said, I've just been clouded in the face by a tree.
It was a hanging bramble.
Off a tree?
No, off a blackberry bush.
God. . .
you can't say that.
If you listen carefully you can hear the geese
shouting Oggy oggy oggy
[Sound of geese squarking]
[Laughing]
People will think you're actually called, Maud, won't they?
I've forgotten what I was going to say now.
Do an inte ent yeah [Blows raspberry]
It's like nuclear war again.
[Laughs]
Brightness
I think the bombed Stockport.
the restrictions ease and we can move on. . .
away from the geese
[Laughs]
who are in mating season, so they're having a right ball at the moment.
[Music plays to the end]