Cruising the Shroppie - Heading Back the Way We Came (Tattenhall to Tyrley)

It's not too long before the luxury of marina life is substituted for the feeling of being crammed in! It was back out on to 'the cut' and heading south, back the way we came. We headed for a mooring just under Beeston Castle, where we had stayed overnight on the way down, not a long cruise from the marina, about 2 hours.

Screenshot taken from Open Canal Map

I'm trying out an application I found; Open Canal Map. This is a screenshot from my mobile phone giving you a better idea of the area around the mooring. Hope it helps!

The remains of Beeston Castle

This time we moored above the locks to take advantage of the picnic tables, time to give the cratch cover a good clean and a spray with a waterproofing agent.







We saw this fellow along the way, unusually he was up for a few shots, normally herons fly ahead a few hundred metres every time you get close. They do this a few times and then seem to circle back to their original hunting spot.

After a night in nice moorings we continued on through picturesque Tilstone Lock where we picked up a locking partner to halve the workload. We continued on together through the two chambered Bunbury Staircase Lock, stopping briefly a little further on at Calveley moorings to avoid a passing heavy shower. We finished the day by cruising on to Barbridge Junction where there were plenty of moorings available. We're well into the summer school break now and moorings here would normally be tight but again the Middlewich Breach seems to have turned many boaters away.

Nantwich is less than an hour on and there too we had little problem finding moorings near the marina for the second time on this cruise. We took the chance to stock the refrigerator and cupboards and then cruised on passed goose heaven, or so it seemed, to moorings halfway to Audlem just doing the two narrow locks at Hack Green.

'Goose Heaven'

Our moorings just after Bridge 84, SUC

As is now the 'norm' the 15 lock Audlem Flight had very few boats moving either way so we had plenty of time to snap some photos of us doing some lock work with Serafina.

Rachael bringing Serafina into a lock on the Audlem Flight

Entry and exit to some of the locks on the Audlem Flight and the Adderley Flight further on can be a little challenging at times. Some of the by-wash channels point directly across the lock entrance necessitating steering into the wash. (see below)

The prize at the Audlem top lock, a market stall with plenty of goodies.











We stopped in Market Drayton again for a few days and took the opportunity to take the bus into Shrewsbury. We had stopped here in a hotel once before but Rachael longed for a larger shopping centre.(smile) There's a beautiful big market hall in the market square that was worth a photo, built in 1596 replacing the previous market hall built in the 1260s.

When we headed off from Market Drayton we had planned to go a little further than the moorings at the Tyrley top lock. However, after an American hire boat team managed to empty a couple of the pounds between the locks on the five lock Tyrley Flight, restoring the equilibrium necessitated a wait and the subsequent queuing. We started at boat five in the queue and when we went into the lock we left four boats still back in the queue.

Queuing at Tyrley Bottom Lock

We started a water fill at the services at the top lock and found another very slow tap. The fellow from the permanent mooring here was filling a couple of 25 litre containers said it was beautiful spring water but terribly slow. We gave it half an hour before mooring up with less than half a tank of water. Apart from the CRT Services and some beautiful old buildings (see this earlier blog) there is nothing here at Tyrley, just peace and quiet, making for good sleep.