Free fun for all the family at canal festival
The 2009 Rochdale Canal Festival will get underway on Saturday 11 July with a week-long programme of free fun events and activities for all the family to enjoy.
The Mayor and Mayoress of Rochdale will officially mark the start the week of festivities at a Festival Fun Day on Saturday 11 July at Ealees, Littleborough. In addition to boat trips, face painting, craft stalls and live music, there will also be a taste of days gone by when the Horseboating Society show visitors to the Festival Fun Day how boats used to travel along the canal in the Victorian era. Using a horse to tow Maria, Britain’s oldest wooden narrowboat, representatives from The Horseboating Society will be spending a week travelling along the length of the 33 mile long restored canal and on Saturday 11 July will be visiting the Festival Fun Day before walking from Littleborough to the Summit. During the remainder of the week, from Saturday 11 July to Sunday 19 July, a host of different activities including kayaking taster classes, waterway walks, heritage and wildlife workshops and fishing sessions will bring the historic waterway to life. Lucy Rogers, Rochdale Canal Development Manager at The Waterways Trust, said: “This is the third annual Rochdale Canal Festival and we are delighted to see how much it has grown in popularity. The events programme is packed with an exciting range of hands-on activities to really show off the canal. The festival is the perfect opportunity for people living in Manchester, Rochdale, Oldham and Calderdale to discover all that the restored waterway has to offer. “I would like to thank all our partners and funders for their help in putting on the festival and look forward to welcoming as many people as possible from the area to the festival and canal.” A full listing of all events, which are free of charge, can be downloaded from www.thewaterwaystrust.org.uk The Rochdale Canal Festival is organised by The Waterways Trust, British Waterways, Rochdale Council, Manchester City Council, Oldham Council, Calderdale Council and the Rochdale Canal Society. Funding has been made available through the South Pennines LEADER programme (Rural Development Programme for England), which is jointly funded through Defra and the European Union, and is managed by Yorkshire Forward in the Yorkshire and Humber Region, the Environment Agency, Oldham Council and Manchester City Council.
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