These last three days have been rather splendid for cruising, a little too hot sometimes, but we’ve tried to get tied up by lunchtime to avoid the hottest part of the day.
Amber and I had a pleasant walk around the water park before we set off at around half-nine on Tuesday morning. We had a short pause at Tattenhill Lock while a boat went up ahead of us, then we were up ourselves.
Tattenhill Lock’s chocolate-box setting
The canal runs close to the busy A38 for a couple of miles where it passes Barton Marina where we spent the winter of 2012/13 following Mag’s stroke.
The roar of traffic is finally left behind when the canal joins the River Trent for a short section above Wychnor Lock.
Here we met Delhi, the ex-LMS station boat that the new owners have had splendidly repainted and also corrected the unfortunate mis-spelling of the name.
Delhi, not Dehli!
The river section to Alrewas Lock is always a pleasure, with that particular aroma of clean, fresh water and the feeling of depth under the bottom.
The was a two-boat queue waiting to go back up onto the canal but these narrow locks don’t take long and we were soon up, luckily pulling onto a just-vacated mooring above the lock.
After another warm night we were off at just before nine, with Fradley Locks and possible queues ahead we wanted to get an early start.
Through Alrewas, looking splendid in the sunshine.
We followed a boat up Bagnall Lock, then on the mile stretch through Common Lock to Hunts Lock, the lower of the five at Fradley.
The new marina next to Common Lock is coming on slowly…
With volunteers on all but Hunts we ascended the locks quickly, only having to wait a short time at Middle Lock, behind a boat that had turned out of the Coventry Canal ahead of us.
Fradley Junction, the Coventry Canal coming in opposite The Swan.
With such a good run up we were moored on the rings above Shadehouse Lock soon after half-eleven.
A little later Dave and Jan on Yesdear pulled in in front of us. We’d been seeing them on and off over the last couple of days. We set up chairs on the grass and had an hour or two chatting in the warm sun, catching up with events since we last saw them.
They were up and off a good 40 minutes before we were today, a good move as it turned out as we got stuck in a bit of a backlog at Woodend Lock.
Still, with crews helping each other we were up and heading off through Ravenshaw Woods 35 minutes after arriving.
I think those heading down will have had a longer wait; there was a steady stream of oncoming boats as we made our way towards Armitage.
The rest of today’s trip was uneventful. We had a short shower early on but it didn’t amount to much, we had to pause while boats in front sorted out the pecking order at Armitage Tunnel, and we filled up the water tank just before Bridge 62.
With this much traffic about I wasn’t sure whether there’d be space at Rugeley, so I dropped on the first gap available. I could have gone further though, there was space both sides of Bridge 66 which gives easy access to the town, but we stayed put anyway.
Moving on out of town tomorrow, but not far. Then we’ll take a day or two off to wait for the weather to tidy up again.
Locks 12, miles 14¾
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