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| Approaching Rugely. Power stations seem to be popular on the Trent, which runs close to the canal - good cooling water, no doubt |
We’ve actually had 2 days on the move, all be it that we haven’t moved very far.
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| "'scuse me, where's the loo?" |
Yesterday we finally left our lovely mooring near Handsacre & travelled through Armitage, passing the loo factory which still borders the canal. Just beyond that the canal narrows to the width of one boat where there used to be a tunnel through the rock before the roof was removed due to subsidence & replaced with a concrete bridge. Simon had to drop off me & V so we could walk through & let him know when it was safe to enter. No need for arm signals when you have an iphone in your pocket!
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| Breath in..... |
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| Over the River Trent |
Into Rugely for a wander, a food shop & lunch before crossing the Trent on an aqueduct & heading off to Colwich for our only lock of the day. Several times we saw houses for sale & being nosey I used my ‘Right Move’ App to see how much they were & what they were like inside! “Such fun!”....as Miranda’s Mum would say!
We had planned to carry on to Tixall Wide for the night, but decided to stop just short of Great Haywood lock with a lovely view of the Shugborough estate & Cannock Chase in the distance.
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| View from M |
Took V for a wander up to the junction where we’ll start our tour around the ‘Four Counties’ Ring. We did it about 7 or 8 years ago when we had our first canal holiday on a Viking Afloat boat. We had 2 weeks to go round that time and managed to go up the Caldon Canal as well. We plan to be somewhat more leisurely this time.
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| Essex Bridge over the River Trent |
Today we had a nice walk up to the Essex Bridge on the Shugborough estate, a stone packhorse bridge built in 1550 by the then Earl of Essex so that Queen Elizabeth I could use it to cross the Trent to go hunting. It only has 14 of the original 40 arches but is still quite impressive, although Vera seemed far more interested in swimming after sticks!
We had a chat to a lady with a lovely chocolate lab called Ivy. There was interesting artwork on her boat & it turned out that it had a very interesting & novel history. Apparently a chap in New Zealand had it built, finished it in his garden and had the rear panel painted by an Aborigine. He then had it shipped over here in a container & then after all that he only used it for about 18 months before selling it. The lady we were talking to is the second owner since then and has been living on board for about 2 years. Bizarrely the chap is now having a Dutch Barge built, again in New Zealand.
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| Vera enjoys a swim |
We had a chat to a lady with a lovely chocolate lab called Ivy. There was interesting artwork on her boat & it turned out that it had a very interesting & novel history. Apparently a chap in New Zealand had it built, finished it in his garden and had the rear panel painted by an Aborigine. He then had it shipped over here in a container & then after all that he only used it for about 18 months before selling it. The lady we were talking to is the second owner since then and has been living on board for about 2 years. Bizarrely the chap is now having a Dutch Barge built, again in New Zealand.
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| Built in NZ |
When we eventually set off we went through our one lock of the day & turned left at the junction to enter the Staffs & Worcester canal, promptly stopping at the Anglo Welsh hire base to diesel up. We moored for a late lunch at Tixall Wide having travelled all of a mile or so. We’ve been over flown by a hot air balloon & nibbled by a swan! It’s all go on the canals.....
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| Lovely evening for a flight |
The average speed so far since we left Pillings Lock is about 35 miles a week!!
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