We left our over-night mooring in Tamworth and continued along the canal through the residential outskirts...
passing under bridge 66a
which immediately led on to a delightful curvaceous bridge...
and on a tight bend we crossed our fingers that a 70footer wasn't approaching from the other side!
Cruising along in the blistering wind we passed some historic looking boats with the character of an ancient malt...
This navy and yellow was my personal favourite, it has British Waterways graffitied on the side, I mean painted!
As we were moving our 14tonne plus boat at walking pace some older pedestrians overtook us on the tow path in their leisurely stroll, stopping to admire the waterside foliage and got across the bridge before we were even through, much to Leigh's dismay. Notice the iron lattice work, rather an unusual railing...
I decided I needed a walk, perching on the roof of the boat as Leigh pushed the tiller this way and that was not doing anything for my desire for exercise. I took the camera and watched Leigh floor it with a glint in his eye and for me, a mouth full of exhaust fumes.
After an incident with the bank and some unidentified fungi, I was back on board and steering. But alas my abilities aren't as expert as Leigh's and in all this wind I careered full pelt into another moored boat. All was fine and I put it down to experience. We shortly moored for water and rubbish disposal.
We carried on as Leigh some how kept the boat going forwards in the middle of the canal whilst the travelling diagonally from the wind blowing her rear end over.
And we approached Atherstone locks. Just 11 or so locks into our destination point! We encountered some characters for sure on this stretch. And as usual, now like old hat we manouvered through the locks until we found a mooring point.
We had tackled six locks in Atherstone and it was six o'clock. We called it a day, satisfied at our journey and arrival in the historic town of Atherstone.
We had made it!
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