Cut to the Chase

Last night we managed our first alfresco meal. It was fantastic to be able to eat at the side of the canal.

We just sat and chatted until we saw a brilliant sunset and most of the wine had been drunk. 

Today we decided to stay put and instead of spending time on the cut we went off to Cannock Chase which is right on our doorstep. 

Gracie had been here on a school trip and was delighted to get the chance to go again. 

We totally failed to follow the map I had spent ages downloading on my iPhone and got a bit lost. This did not dampen the spirits and there were very few moans about all the walking and all the uphill, most of which were from me. 

Gracie picked an unusual spot for a picnic, or so I thought, 

until they discovered a tree you could ride on. 

We finally located a path and eventually we were walking on the Staffordshire way. This was good as we couldn't get lost. This was also terrible as for a mile the Staffordshire way makes you walk along the side of a busy main road without a pavement. We won't be walking the Staffordshire way again, we prefer to be safe. 

Later on we walked past Shugborough Hall and its various follies. 

The Hall is closed on Tuesdays but we hadn't planned to visit anyway. 

We could still see the goats and sheep which we were glad were on the other side of a fence as these horns looked like they would win any disagreement. 

At the farm shop in Great Haywood, that some of our readers will know quite well, we found a black cheese. Some has duly been purchased for sampling another day. 

We have seen some unusual craft on this trip, but this is the strangest cargo so far. 

At Little Haywood bridge a thought occurred to me. How big were the horses that pulled the boats. The ones I have seen at demonstrations are huge so in that case how did they get under these bridges. 

Gracie is 10 and she can only just fit under at the very edge of the towpath. 

Perhaps they used Shetlands on this canal?

The long way home

We have now met everyone we had planned to on our trip and have begun the slow meander home. As we are ahead of schedule we can cruise less and stop more. 

Last night in the unexpected heat we went for a walk around Fradley water park. The lake was created do the Trent and Mersey kept their water and it didn't go into the Coventry. Highly inventive. On the way to the water park we passed this dog who knew how to deal with the heat. 

We filled up with water this morning whilst Alison took advantage of the proper showers available. Both took ages but at least it was concurrently. 

When we finally set off we had to negotiate several locks with these bridges. Luckily the chimney passed through all with ease. 

We were rapidly running out of money so decided to stop in Rugeley for a cash point. We tried to pull in at the visitor moorings but grounded a full metre from the bank! Not very good visitor moorings. The boat passing us going the other way also grounded level with us. We poled off eventually but cannot believe the shallow depth of canal here and will not try to stop at Rugeley visitor moorings again. A little later we found a lovely mooring spot and managed to get to the bank with ease. 

Disaster. Somebody spotted my ratchet windlass and asked what it was. I eagerly  picked it up to demonstrate one to find out the the part that changes the ratchet from one direction to the other has fallen off and it now is a non-ratchet windlass! Much sulking ensued. Upon further checking lots of the screws were loose so I tightened these with my ratchet screwdriver. I tightened them too much and broke the screwdriver. Even more sulking followed. 

In Rugeley I found a hardware shop and managed to buy a bolt that will work the ratchet so now have a customised windlass with no loose screws, but alas no ratchet screwdriver any more. 

After we left Rugeley we cruised across the Trent aqueduct. 

And finally moored in Little Haywood. 

 

A beautiful spot with a picnic bench just by us. 

 

We are not sure why Buddha is in the field by the bench but he looks content enough. 

The view here is excellent, there is a railway on either side. We will come back here 

And when we got into the village there are two pubs and a general store so the crew are happy too. Everyone's a winner. 

Gongoozlers Galore

Today we were off late, as we don't have far to go. We are on the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal now, you can tell this by the fact the bridges have names and not numbers. I took this photograph whilst at the tiller, and then had yet another low chimney panic.
This was not as bad as getting under the A38, where the chimney had about 2 cm clearance and we struck the towpath trying to stay to the right. We did make it. 

This was looking back at the bridge after successful passing. Perhaps I'll take bridge photos like this in the future. 

Suddenly the canal turns back into the Coventry  canal on what, for obvious reasons, is called the isolated section. It is interesting reading as to how this came about. 

When we got to Fradley Junction we took the first available mooring. It could have been made to measure as we fit into it perfectly.
We were very glad that we took this mooring as there are no others available that we can find.

We decided to stay here for the night, as we had already met up with Graham and Roslyn, and we were going to go for a meal. When we reached the junction, we were delighted that we will not be passing through yet today as there are Gongoozlers everywhere. It would be at a time like this and I would do something stupid.

We had a wonderful meal, even Kenneth Michael enjoyed the carvery despite many complaints that he didn't like a carvery until it transpired that he didn't know what one was.
Graham and Roslyn were superb company as always and proved the value of true friends by picking up essential supplies for us. Here is a picture of them, children and supplies. 

We are now making the most of being moored up before one thirty. 

Hopwas or bust

Today we tried to set off early but as always things didn't go to plan. 

We knew today would be a long day as we wanted to get out of the bandit country of Tamworth and back into quiet rural moorings for the evening. 

The first place of note was Hartshill Yard, looking very traditional. 

There are eleven locks in the Atherstone flight and they must be the slowest filling locks in the country. Or so we thought. 

Apparently when the working boats were going downhill turbulence was not a problem as the boats were empty but going uphill the boats were heavily laden and turbulence could cause problems with the load so the locks were purposefully designed to fill slowly but empty quickly. 

We were in a queue at every lock so further behind schedule. 

We were also worried about getting the chimney under the bridges, but slowly does it and steering to the right whenever possible we made it intact. 

 

Our onboard toilet is very like a bank account. The more you deposit the more interest it generates. We were all interested in getting a pump out so at the first available opportunity we did.  It involved turning around to get the tank on the towpath side and then £20 for a pump out with added blue as part of the service. Hey ho, sometimes you just have to pay. 

After the pump out the blue would not go down the pipe and it turned out the tank had not been fully emptied and we had a blockage. Intriguing conversations followed with the children about exactly what had gone down the toilet but in the end we concluded there were no erroneous items there. The man who could turned the mean green pump out machine upto maximum and yes, the blockage got sucked out and the toilet is still on commission for the rest of the trip. Much relief that we will have onboard relief was prevalent but we were further behind schedule. 

Next were the Glascote locks which were even slower to fill. Two locks took over an hour and one even had poetry at one side to read whilst you were waiting. Even further behind schedule. 

Despite all of this and the occasional torrential downpour we made it to Hopwas and went to the Tame Otter for a lovely meal with Peter and Janet who were fantastic company. 

A superb day, but nine hours at the tiller, but now the little ones are off to bed and time for the grown ups to spend the final few minutes before exhaustion gets the better of them too celebrating their first wedding anniversary. 

One year today. 

Boredom on the water

Well not boredom for the adults but the last picture was the highlight of the day for the children. 

After the first boat past before 6:30 (Why ???) we got up and eventually set off at 8:30. 

Today had the nicest weather of any day so far and we might look like we've been to Costa Rugby. 

The Oxford canal is beautiful. 

Just outside Coventry you have canal, railway and M6 within yards of each other. We know which we prefer. 

It got hotter and hotter and these horses decided to have a bath in the canal. 

Then it was Hawkesbury junction and the end of the Oxford. 

I decided to be clever and take a picture on my way into the lock. 

Which provoked much panicking as I realised that allowing the boat to steer itself into a lock is perhaps not the best way. Anyway we made it. 

CanalPlan said we should stop at Charity Dock. However it proved more of a graveyard than a dock so we pressed on. 

We briefly thought about going up the Ashby canal as we are ahead of schedule but decided this would make it more of a mission and being ahead of schedule means we can stop if we see something interesting.  This is the turning we did not take. 

There is lots of history to see if you look for it and here is a lone telegraph pole from when they canal would have them all the way along its length. 

Finally we stopped at the Anchor pub jus through Nuneaton. The kids went to the bouncy castle and we haven't seen them in an hour. Happy Holidays but it's more Costa Lotta than Costa Rugby. 

And on the seventh day we rested.

Our mooring in Newbold turned out not to be as nice as we had hoped. It turns out the canal banks are inclined here so the bottom of the boat hits the bank before the fenders do, and it makes a large metallic clang. 

It also does the same clang and a horrible grating noise every time anybody on board moves. 

After an evening on tiptoes and not daring to move in bed all night, the first boat past in the morning woke us all up with what can best be described as a peel of clangs an amateur campanologist may make on an initial foray. 

The second boat did the same as well as horrendous grating noises so at this I leapt into action and announced we were moving straight away. 

Up we all got, me more willing than others and before long we were travelling through Newbold tunnel. 

We did find a lovely mooring just past the next bridge, but this meant that we had to walk back through the tunnel to get anywhere. It does have a nice towpath but the lights don't seem to work anymore. 

We found that our mooring spot was lovely but the volume of traffic going past meant our mooring pins were being slowly eased out of position by the movemen of Magpie II. Luckily we were moored straight across from Armada boats at Falls Bridge Wharf who offered helpful advice and sold me some chains to make the mooring more secure. 

Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure, which had been purchased from Calcutt Boats along with the new fenders was duly applied to the leaky windows and finally our day of rest could begin with a nice walk. 

We followed a path I used to walk our dog on and some came across another abandoned loop of the canal. 

We then walked into Rugby meeting several old friends and one who is bound for Canada who it was lovely to see before he leaves. Finally a quick drink at our favourite resting place from many dog walks. 

Before back to Magpie II who was still where we had left her thanks to our new chains. We did get the lovely sight of a full moon over the canal with tha long abandoned Newbold loop on the right. We are not sure why, if they bricked up the old tunnel, they would leave the other end in water and build an iron bridge over it. Research to be done I think. The moon would not photograph well but I tried. 

Made it to our planned destination.

We had a short lie in today to recover from Alison's birthday and with slightly woolly heads we set off at About 9:00. 

The bridges on the Oxford Canal are of a grand scale and easy to negotiate. 

We got the iconic view of Braunston Church and correctly managed this Piccadilly Circus of canal junctions taking the left turn towards Rugby. 

It was nice to be back on a narrow canal with no huge craft and no need to share locks. There were only three today, at Hillmorton. 

No fender problems here though we were very curtly told that if we were using the left hand locks we should stick with them, this is apparently canal etiquette. Some people should remember they own their boat not the whole canal system. 

In Foulridge, where I grew up, there was a picture of a famous  cow on the pub wall which had fallen in the canal and swim through the mile tunnel. 

We were pleased this beast wasn't trying to swim, he is HUGE. It did make us inclined to have a steak tonight though 

We moored up at Newbold on Avon, where the children and I would regularly walk our dog when we lived locally. On our favourite walk we used to pass the portal of the original Newbold tunnel. 

And walk over this former canal bridge. 

All this industrial history on our doorstep and we never really appreciated it. 

We will stay here for another day and explore our former stamping ground.