Delia spent the journey basking in the sunlight spots, streaming into the boat through the windows. She has been exploring outside the boat during our tea-break stop today and is now in and out the hedgerow along the tow path whilst we moor for the night.
This morning, after a trip to the amazing Chandlery at Sawley we set off with a new mop/brush/hook on a pole and fully stocked with milk. We passed through the flood lock, already open and looked forward to the next stretch of the Trent and Mersey.
Following the directions on the map, we kept to the right to aviod any problems from the weir, indicated by the chain of large orange buoys.
We passed under the bridge for the M1 motorway and noticed we were at Junction 24 - one that I have driven passed on many occasions.
Continuing along the wide stretch of the canal, there were only a few other boats passing on route.
We passed a sign at Derwent mouth
and found our path through the overhanging bushes, gently pootling down a waterway stretch which was like a secret entrance to Britain.
We came across the first lock of the day and shared the lift with another boat well staffed with crew.
We followed on in their waves all round delightful Shardlow, passing many moored boats at the marina and noticing some gorgeous historic boats.
Leigh found out that this area is very popular and we would be hard pushed to find a place to stop over night, he wasn't joking! Boats were moored each side making some corners real sharp turns. We heard stories of a boat getting stuck yesterday and so took it slow. Leigh did a sterling job at steering, he makes it look so easy! We wanted to make a good distance today so didn't pull up to explore, we were happy to absorb the view of the village from the cut.
The architecture was fascinating...
Nice to see British Waterways (BW) giving the foliage a hair cut!
We came upto the next lock and again shared this with the boat in front. We had to rope both boats up as there was alot of movement in the locks.
We headed out the lock first leaving the other boaters to stop for lunch and steamed out into the countryside, passing Hicken's Bridge (4).
As we went along, we spotted two herons stood like twiglet statues on the canal edge looking for fish.
This stretch of the canal has moorings and a tow path on one side with trees and fields beyond. We passed through bridge 5 and took in the vast expanse of greenery. We were enjoying sharing the steering...
We came up to Aston Lock and decided to go over manouvering the lock together. So I did a quick tie-her-up trick and Leigh and I went up the hill to the lock gates. After closing the top gates and their paddles we began the cranking at the lower gates to allow the water to flow out. Leigh turned to head to the boat only to find her rope dangling loose in the water and her nose wide into the canal. She's on the loose! We rushed down the hill and both lept aboard to rescue her and the trailing rope. Leigh dropped me off and I went up to open the gates. But they wouldn't open. I pulled and pushed but I couldn't open them at all. I noticed that water from the top gates was forcing through the upper flaps, this pressure must be forcing the gates shut I thought. I signalled to Leigh who came to my rescue. They were stiff gates and needed real strength to open them, not my best skill but certainly Leigh's! We reported the difficulties to BW and after alot of banging about, sloshing water and heave-ho-ing, we managed to get the boat through the lock unharmed but we were both rather stressed.
We continued a little father and pulled over for a well deserved break. We had completed 5 miles and it was still early, 4pm or so, so we had another few hours of cruising left.
We took the straight run up through Weston lock and on to Swarkestone Lock where a bunch of kids were playing in the water. One of which had no fear or you could say no brains and bombed into the lock water just as Leigh was setting off on the boat into the lock. After a bit of loud mouthing the kids played ball and lent a hand. This was a big lock and took quite some time to fill up. I took the paddles gradually so as to prevent excessive banging about of the boat in the lock and Leigh having to pump the engine.
We came out alot higher in the countryside and were heading towards the sun, after passing bridge 15 on the Trent and Mersey canal we decided enough was enough.
We had managed 8 miles and I was feeling a migrane coming on. Too much sun. We moored up for a beautiful sunset and settled for the evening. After curry and cleaning up, Leigh fixed up some new fire cement on the wood burner as we had discovered it was cracking and breaking off the flue.
And so we sit by the fire after a good sunset, wondering what is in store tomorrow and looking back at today as a joy and adventure. We would love to cruise for ever.
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