A detour

We had the throttle cable replaced by an engineer from a boatyard just along the cut. He arrived an hour after I made the call to enquire about the job and he fixed it with no troubles. He also solved our faulty connection with the ignition too. By the sounds of it, the gear cable might be on it's way out also, but that will have to wait to be replaced at a later date.

I set off for Nottingham on Wednesday morning... After a long venture at work, I got home on Thursday night feeling weary and curled up on the sofa after dinner for a snooze.


So where are we now? Atherstone! Well, we needed to visit family here and it made sense to spend the beautiful day of Friday cruising so we prepared to leave our mooring.

There were lots of boats on the waterways and we had to wait for many boats to pass by before we could up the ropes and leave.

The route through Rugby was fine, wide canals with long straight stretches and not a lock for miles! According to the map we passed through an aquaduct going over the River Avon but I could only spot a fine trickle of water below us.


On this stretch of the Oxford Canal (heading North West) are a fine selection of beautiful bridges...


built by Horsely Iron Works.


After 7 miles we had reached the water point at Stretton Stop (the home of Rose Narrowboat HIre) which is close to the village of Brinklow and I jumped off to open up the swing bridge. We filled up with water and hosed the boat down - much to the dislike of a grumbling couple of boaters. I guess it is drinking water, but it is much easier to keep the boat clean and protect the paintwork using the hose at the waterpoint - what can you do?!

We continued along the way towards Bedworth sharing the steering. We passed an apple tree and I jumped off to run back to collect some but unfortunately they were sour and not yet fully sized.


The route skirted Coventry and stayed picturesque with the buildings on the horizon.


We reached Hawkesbury Junction...


and the tiny lock - which was our very first lock we ever went through when we first purcahsed the boat. This junction isn't an easy one especially for boats of 65feet!


Leigh had to wind the boat under the bridge to take us parallel to the route we had taken. We were now on the Coventry canal heading North for Atherstone.


This was a dramatic part of the journey as we passed a field on fire with large trees alight...


and two fire engines tackling the blaze.


The water was being pumped from the canal to extinguish the flames.


We noticed a firewoman working at the trucks too.

We passed Bedworth and Marston Junction - which takes you onto the Ashby Canal and continued to Nuneaton. It was in the thick of the town that we found a man collapsed on the towpath. We went to his aid along with other passers by and phoned for an ambulance. After the paramedics arrived we continued on the boat towards Hartshill.

Having stopped we were now against the clock to get to Atherstone before dark. By Hartshill the sun was low...


so we put the headlight on and continued along the route. Fortunately we know this stretch very well so were aware of the twists and turns. Leigh did brilliantly at navigating in the dark and we passed our good friends Rupert and Dylan at their mooring. By the time we got to Atherstone top lock it was 10pm and we were both hungry and tired. We moored up in a perfectly sized space for us and wandered to the fantastic chippy on the high street. We filled up and settled for the night.

We managed 25miles in the one day - the most we have achieved.

This weekend we had a visitor to the boat, Leigh's mum...


and had a lovely time in the blazing sunshine. Delia was so hot she rolled over to cool her fuzzy belly in the breeze.