The Great Cruise Part 1

Sorry for the long pause between posts. We have been off on our cruise up the Shropshire Union Canal and then when we reurned, Bonny finally got spayed and is now recovering.

I will be posting photos of our cruise but they will have to wait as I am not on my own computer at present.

We left in the rain on Monday 7th June from our home mooring at Fradley. The first day was only as far as King's Bromley, where we moored among the Rhodedendrons overnight before going into the marina to pump out, diesal and water. There is something immensely satisfying about taking on the liquid you need and getting rid of that which you don't! Tuesday was the only day when it rained without ceasing. So I dripped my way from Kings Bromley to Great Haywood where we moored at Tixall Wide on the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal. This is a beautiful spot where the canal widens into a lake - made in the distant past by the occupants of Shugborough Hall in order to improve their view!

The next day we faced our first challenge - deep locks. The first one was 10'2" and as we approached from the bottom, the gates looked like the very entrance to hell! It's funny how quickly we adjust to things though as, on our return leg, having done many of these locks, I looked at this one and wondered what all the fuss was about - it wasn't that big! It was a hard cruising day this day as I needed to reach Penkridge in order to pick up my friend Mary that evening and there were a fair few locks and miles between Tixall and Penkridge.

By the way, I have learnt a really helpful way of knowing how long a stretch of canal should take to cruise single handed. I count the number of miles and add that to the number of locks and then divide by three and that gives me the number of hours it should take. So, for example, if there are five locks and ten miles between two points, then 5 + 10 = 15 / 3 = 5 hours. It turned out to be remarkably accurate.

Mary had her own journey to make to reach the boat which included dropping her car in Market Drayton and then being on a bus that broke down, followed by another bus that got caught in a mega traffic jam, so she was relieved to finally reach Penkridge and join me in the pub for a late supper!

The next day I set off with human crew! Just as well, as I wanted to get all the way through to Wolverhampton and turn onto the Shropshire Union Canal before stopping for the day, as I much prefer to moor in the countryside than in town. Mary and Bonny did really well as we cruised non stop for six and a half hours, finally stopping between bridges 7 and 8 on the Shroppie. This is a wonderful mooring. A voluntary group - The Shropshire Union Canal Society - go around installing mooring rings in lovely rural locations on this canal, unheard of on our stretch of the Trent and Mersey. So we had a secure mooring in lovely countryside, with fantastic walks for Bonny through ancient woodland and farmland.

To be continued...