Aqueduct Marina & A Very Warm Welcome

Sunrise over our mooring. What a contrast to the previous day's gloomy grey skies!

How's this for a bottleneck? Sorry, no widebeams allowed!

We reach Aqueduct Marina with our tums rumbling in anticipation of their lovely breakfasts. The location is enviable. No main roads, no railway lines, just a constant flow of narrowboats chugging past and always a friendly wave from their crew.

As we've not really covered much of the system yet, it's difficult to comment on a particular marina without having seen what else is on offer. All we can say, is that this one is an excellent example of how to run a boat based business with boaters as your priority.

As soon as you enter the marina, one of the very friendly staff, walk down from the office and greet you. Not with a scowl, or, an intrusive question, but simply with an enquiry as to your needs.

From there, you are attended to with efficiency and in a very business like manner. How refreshing is that?

Our only criticism is that the boat repair sheds overlook the moorings. Here, you can have every conceivable repair or alteration to your boat.

A view from across the marina.

The office is situated on the right, along with the very inviting resaurant which is licenced and where they have late night opening at the weekends. Once a month, they hold music nights, whereby any one who can play an instrument can come along to join in the fun. One or two of the moorers are accomplished musicians, who can sing the blues away all night. Perfeck.


The office, which is well designed with lounge seats for your comfort, houses numerous notice boards where moorers can gain access to many boat related services. Also, there's a professional
display board with all 'boats for sale' on show for anyone to observe. Something akin to an Estate Agents, but with floating homes instead of fixed abodes that cost an arm and a leg to maintain!


The brokered boats are positioned close together on the first pier and additionally on the pier closest to the boat sheds. Each one has its own brochure displayed in the cratch window, explaining all of the relevant details required. Something like Fettlers Wrath (Not).


The taller bulding is presently a barn. There are plans to convert this to a B&B in the future though.


While there, we took the opportunity to fill ourselves with the early morning breakfast. It was like a homecoming, if only after being a week since being there previously. The staff at both the office and restaurant appeared to be quite amused at the cheeky wit delivered by yours truly, together with the regular purchase of cups of coffee, tea and as many jars of preserves that Chrissie could fit in her bag.


This place, with its rural setting, friendly folk and professionalism, was a total eye opener for Chrissie and I. Even before learning of what had transpired back in Rufford, we had come to realise that there's a lot more on offer, if you are able to reach these distant locations!


Once we'd satisfied our hunger and hugged the owner of the restaurant (nice chap), we set off on our way along the Middlewich branch of the Shroppie, happy in the knowledge that we'd made some new friends and interestingly, learnt an awful lot about customer service!