All by ourselves...

Our daughter and her family left quite early on another cool and rainy day heading for London and ultimately Melbourne. In fact, as I am writing this blog they have just arrived home safely.

We headed off virtually straight after the kids left for a few hours cruising. I say 'virtually' because with the weather being so poor it was time to don the waterproof pants and jacket. This is only done in extreme cases, I prefer to stay indoors when it's raining. In this case we had to make some time up to make a meeting with Kevin and Carol in nb Dunslavin at Fazeley.

The cruise was reasonably uneventful with lots of farmland along the way and this beautiful old mansion house called Bishton Hall. Currently a school, a little research tells me it was built in 1750.

We stuck reasonably close to the busy West Coast Rail Line, there was the constant buzz of high speed trains passing. Generally with less than ten minutes between them it is quite a busy line. You can see by this pic of the mile post on the canal that we cruised through quite a few miles of farmland.

Just before Rugeley the canal crossed the River Trent, the Trent and Mersey Canal sticks close to the River Trent. A shot back over my shoulder of the aqueduct.

The River Trent from the Aqueduct.

We passed through Rugeley and continued on until we came to the site of the old Armitage Tunnel. Having caved in, it is now a one way length of narrow canal with a bend in the middle so you cannot see oncoming boat traffic. The sign advised that someone should walk ahead to ensure the way is clear. I dropped Rachael off and waited for her to get past the bend, about 150m, where she gave me the thumbs-up to continue. It was fortunate Rachael went ahead, as I got around the bend a boat was just pulling up.

A comedy of errors began about here! I went around the waiting boat and pulled to the side where Rachael decided to board the boat at the bow (front) rather than the stern (back). She shuffled along the gunnel, jacket in hand, towards the stern until she was 3/4 the way there. For some reason she decided to throw her coat to me. The jacket caught the wind and landed on the other side of the boat in the canal. There wasn't much time to think, I slowed the boat, reached down off the deck and managed to grab the jacket. On the way down I knocked my chin on the engine room door and put my teeth through my bottom lip. When I got back up Rachael had arrived, apologising profusely, all she could see was blood streaming from my mouth. A small price to pay for an expensive jacket!


After stopping at a 'CRT advised' offside (not the towpath side) mooring to pick up a few things at Armitage we moored for the night at Handsacre. It hadn't been the best cruising day we had ever had, dull, windy and rainy, it was nice to pull the boat over and go inside to sit down for a while.

The next morning was much brighter as we headed off, a bright sunny day for a change. It was a couple of hours before we reached Fradley junction and turned off the Trent and Mersey on to the Coventry Canal and tying up to fill the water tank. It was such a slow fill, seeming to take ages, that we moved on to the temporary moorings, locked up the boat and went to get some lunch.
The Swan, right on the junction, was busy outside thanks to the bright sunshine but not terribly busy inside. We checked the menu and didn't find it terribly exciting so moved around the corner to the nature reserve cafe. We did eat here but weren't overwhelmed by the meals we chose. Apparently we should have walked down to the cafe at the CRT office.

Once we got going again, Streetham Wharf came up after around an hour with diesel at 69p, time to top up. Typical of boatyards it was a mixture of old boats and new in various states of disrepair.

It was a short cruise from the wharf to our mooring for the night at Whittington. We locked up the boat and went for a stroll to have a look around and grab a few bits and pieces if we came across a shop. The horse and buggy was moving along at a good rate of knots.

Nice pub at Whittington but no time for a drink or a meal tonight there's a few little jobs to do.

Cruising out of Whittington the next morning there was some houses with gardens backing on to the canal.

Our cruise to Fazeley Junction was a nice short two hour cruise and again through farm land. We have met up with Kevin and Carol and are moored at Fazeley for the night.