The wheels in question were a Toyota Avensis from Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Not had one of these before. I was going to get an Astra or something similar, but this was going begging, and for a small upgrade it was worth it.
The guy who introduced me to it was singing it’s praises, but wasn’t that impressed. It was noisy at motorway speeds, I couldn’t get to grips with the climate control (cold feet, warm head or vice-versa!) and it had one of those annoying automatic handbrakes. At least it didn’t have engine stop/start, else I would have been well miffed. I like to make my own decisions while driving, thank you very much! The Mondeo we had 3 weeks ago was much more pleasant to drive.
Mercia Marina has been a useful stopover for us, secure parking for the car and secure mooring with power for the boat. We were right around the perimeter road, near the workshop and dry dock. Bruce and Sheila on Sanity Again, who I had a chat to this morning, reckon that it’s the largest inland marina in Europe. That doesn’t surprise me, it took me 10 minutes to drive around the perimeter to the gate! There’s around 550 boats in there.
Mercia Marina from in front of the Willow Tree Café
Backing out of our berth
I pulled on to Midland Chandlers wharf for 5 minutes while I took the gate key fob thingy back to the ofiice, retrieving my £20 deposit, then we were off along the access channel back out onto the canal.
The now redundant cooling towers of Willington Power Station
For the third day in a row it’s been a fine, warm, sunny day. Must be some kind of record for October! But it’s all set to change as we head through the week, so I’m told.
Cruising towards Burton
Even though it’s only been 3½ days, it was good to be out of the confines of the marina and on open water again. Especially on a fine early autumn day.
We didn’t get too far, mooring up between Bridges 24a and 25, about a mile out of Willington.
Mags has not been her normal jolly self today. I think the trip up to Yorkshire and back, coupled with her ‘flu jab, has taken it out of her. She’s dozed a lot today, but expects to be OK tomorrow.
Isn’t rust persistent. I had some blebby bits around the side hatch hinges, a fairly common spot on boats when the hinges are welded on. The problem is there often a small gap between the back of the hinge and the cabin side, which harbours water. I wish they’d continuously weld them on.
Anyway, I thought I’d adequately treated all the rust, but some must have been lurking…
Locks 0, miles 2
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