Cruising through history from Manchester to Liverpool

The sun is out over Greater Manchester. The sky - big and blue - is only faintly smudged with clouds. The temperature is edging 20C and is set to rise a couple more degrees over the next few hours. There's a gentle breeze. No rain forecast. A nice summer's day in the north-west of England - promising for a cruise.

Most journeys from Manchester to Liverpool are made by road or rail and take about 40 minutes. I'm going by boat. Operated by Mersey Ferries, the six-hour Manchester Ship Canal cruise traverses one of the marvels of Victorian engineering - a man-made waterway that threads 58km via a swathe of grittily industrial landscapes and bucolic countryside.

"I promise I won't talk for the whole six hours," says Ann Marshall, a Blue Badge guide, who's gripping a microphone on MV Snowdrop. Formerly MV Woodchurch, Snowdrop - launched in 1959 and upgraded in recent years - is powered by new "green-friendly" Wartsila engines and can carry 386 passengers on these pleasure cruises, which run several times a week in both directions from mid-April to mid-October.

Taking a seat on Snowdrop's upper deck, I quickly realise that, at 36, I'm probably the youngest passenger on board. Everyone else is mostly aged between 50 and 80 and all appear to be sipping cups of tea or cappuccino (bought from the licensed snack bar manned by a couple of friendly 20-something Liverpudlians). The mild morning air is spiked with coffee fumes and a palpable sense of anticipation.

When the clock strikes 11am, we set off from Salford Quays. Part of the old Port of Manchester, the quays have been reborn as a thriving leisure-retail-business hub, fringed with eye-catching modern architecture. The Lowry shopping mall and art gallery, the Imperial War Museum North and MediaCityUK (comprising the brand-new studios of the BBC and Coronation Street) all stand out.

How different the quays must have looked in 1894 when the ship canal was unveiled by Queen Victoria. Dubbed the "Big Ditch", it had taken six years - and the excavation of 41 million cubic metres of material, dug by teams of navvies and state-of-the-art machinery - to construct a waterway that linked industrial Greater Manchester with the mouth of the River Mersey, the gateway to the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

The merchants of "Cottonopolis" - as Manchester was known, thanks to its cotton and textile industries - were thrilled with the canal, as they could now import and export goods without having to pay the dues previously imposed on them by Liverpool's docks and railway companies. Ocean-going steamships came up and down the channel, and Manchester's economy boomed and diversified with the opening of Trafford Park, the world's first planned industrial estate.

In contrast, Liverpool's business community wasn't happy and it's said the long-running enmity between the two cities - which often manifests itself most fiercely on the football pitch - dates back to the ship canal's construction.

Chugging past a flotilla of rowers on Salford Quays, we drift under the glossy Millennium Bridge. Also known as the Lowry Bridge in tribute to L.S. Lowry, the local painter who immortalised Manchester's smoking chimney- scapes on canvas, it's a swinging gem, its bowstring arches lifted by hydraulically driven winches to allow us passage.

The Lowry is the first in a series of awe-inspiring engineering feats on our journey. Ann regales us with fascinating snippets about these mostly Victorian-era bridges and railway viaducts, cobbled together with sturdy red-brick sandstone and cast-iron fittings.

Not far from Trafford Park, the Barton Swing Aqueduct is extraordinary. Its swinging action allows large vessels using the ship canal to pass underneath and lets smaller narrowboats cross over the top via the slim Bridgewater Canal (which the Duke of Bridgewater had built, in 1761, to transport coal to Manchester from his mines in Worsley). Locks are another key component of the ship canal and, overall, we spend about an hour sitting in them. The 18m drop in height from Manchester to Liverpool is resolved by five different locks: Mode Wheel, Barton, Irlam, Latchford and finally Eastham, where the canal melds with the Mersey - a river we see on several occasions during the journey, flowing beside the canal. (Though it's always associated with Liverpool, the Mersey actually starts in Stockport, Greater Manchester.)

One of the most pleasing aspects of the Manchester Ship Canal cruise is the varied scenery. At some stretches, we're passing mountains of recycled metal, derelict industrial units, oil refineries and petrochemical plants; on others, we're gliding through green corridors, past verdantly hedged banks and farmers' fields. Seagulls are flapping by, herons are congregating by salt marshes, and dog walkers, joggers and cyclists are pounding canal-side paths. Every now and then we see canal- maintenance workers at work. They give us a wave.

Passing by the Industrial Revolution - and rugby league - boom towns of Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn, Ann reveals surprising nuggets: for instance, how Daresbury, a small, canal-side Cheshire village, was the birthplace of Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland.

Another striking thing about the canal is that it's still very much a working waterway, not just a haven for leisure cruisers. We brush past a handful of barges and small container ships making pick-ups and drop-offs at little docks.

In terms of cargo carried, the canal hit its zenith in the 1950s, when 20 million tonnes annually were shipped along its length. But traffic declined in the 1970s due to the growth of containerisation and the increasing size of vessels, which became too big to navigate the canal.

In recent years, the canal has enjoyed a mini-renaissance, with Peel Ports - which owns the ship canal, as well as the Port of Liverpool - planning various new docks, terminals and warehouses as it bids to boost trade. Supermarket giant Tesco now ships its wine imports, including Australian shiraz, up the canal to its bottling plant in Irlam. The firm estimates this takes 50 lorry journeys off the M62 motorway each week.

Excitement levels on Snowdrop rise as we swap the canal for the Mersey. As Ann reveals how the first regular ferries across this great river were run by Benedictine monks in the 14th century, I find myself humming Ferry Cross the Mersey. Incidentally, Gerry Marsden - of Gerry and the Pacemakers fame - made a cameo appearance as Snowdrop's captain in 2007.

If Salford Quays was an impressive place to start the cruise, then Pier Head, on Liverpool's UNESCO World Heritage-listed waterfront, is a brilliant spot to finish it. Liverpool's skyline has evolved in recent years but its piece de resistance, the "Three Graces", still stands proud.

This trio of magnificent Edwardian edifices was built at the start of the 20th century, when Liverpudlians boasted that they lived in the "second city" of the British Empire.

Of course, their Mancunian rivals thought differently - in no small part thanks to the magnificent ship canal.

• fact file *

·Between 60 and 70 Mersey Ferry cruises run annually, from April-October, along the Manchester Ship Canal. After the cruises, passengers are transferred back to their starting point by coach. Some cruises have scheduled 2 1/2-hour stopovers where you can explore Salford Quays or Liverpool. Adult fares are £38 ($73), and it is £36 for seniors and children. Advance bookings are advised, especially during the northern summer months. merseyferries.co.uk.

·A must for river and canal buffs, the National Waterways Museum is next to the canal, near Ellesmere Port, not far from Liverpool. canalrivertrust.org.uk/national-waterways-museum.

·For more information on Liverpool, see visitliverpool.com.

·For Salford Quays and Manchester see thequays.org.uk and visitmanchester.com.