A strange kind of day…

We set off at half past nine this morning, hoping to avoid having to queue at Stoke Locks, and also intending to be well up towards the Stoke summit by the time the rain arrived late morning.

The sun was out and the birds were singing when we woke up, but by the time we untied the clouds had rolled in again. At least it wasn’t as windy as yesterday.

We made good time towards Stoke, passing the incinerator after about 35 minutes.



From here I reckon we’re actually in the city, although there are some leafy bits roads and industry are never far from the canal.

By Bridge 112a the canal crosses the very young River Trent.
From here it’s about 8 miles to it’s source on Biddulph Moor, with another 175 or so miles to run before it joins the Yorkshire Ouse and heads out into the North Sea through the Humber estuary.

Stoke Bottom Lock, an ugly concrete structure which replaced the original during road improvement works.

The locks come regular up to Etruria, only minutes separating them. Cockshutts Lock was next, accessed under a tunnel formed by two adjacent railway lines. Low headroom too. We squashed a chimney under here once!



I try to get a picture of us in the lock with a train passing over the bridge, but the timetables weren’t co-operative today.

Twyford Lock is reached after passing the large cemetery on the right, then it’s a short run to the final two, one after the other, at Etruria.

All the locks as we came up were full, so I had to empty them. Johnson’s Lock was no different, so I tied the boat up and lifted the paddles to drop the water level. Idly leaning on the bridge rail watching the water swirling below the lock as it emptied I saw what I thought was a bundle of rags and I remember thinking that’s likely to get wrapped around the prop. It was only when it rolled over in the water and I saw a face that I realised it was actually a body. A 999 call resulted in the police and paramedics arriving at the scene, although even I could see he was well past CPR.
It was apparently a local chap who’d gone missing on March 20th. https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/police-set-up-cordon-after-2721352
At least the family know what happened to him now. Very sad.

It was a couple of hours before we could carry on, after the body had been collected by a mortuary team. We were soon up onto the summit though and on our way.

Looking back at Stoke Top Lock, with the Caldon Canal heading off to the left.

By now we’d missed any chance of avoiding the weather, it had been raining steadily since we’d arrived at Johnson’s Lock. But I decided to press on anyway, no more locks to do, with just around 45 minutes to cruise to Westport Lake.


We finally tied up at just before three.

Tomorrow, hopefully with better weather and less drama, we’ll head through Harecastle Tunnel and down off the summit level.

Locks 5, miles 7