Autumn Cruise: Day 4

For some reason we were both awake early this morning, so decided to get up.  Consequently, it was about 7.30 when we set off, on a rather murky morning.  We were a bit worried that we’d be too early for a space on the moorings near Tesco in Rugby, but in fact we had a choice, opting for the one beyond the water point.  It was on the park side, so marginally further to walk to the shop, but it wasn’t on a bend like all the others.  It was still before 9am when we set off again having done the shopping.  The next bit of canal through Newbold and Brinklow is very familiar but pleasant enough.  At Stretton Stop there were a couple of boats to come through the narrows, and a man on the offside from where the little swing bridge is operated.

The man let us through too; it turned out he was from a boat moored a bit further along and was just waiting to get back across the canal.  The next few miles are some of my least favourite.  They just seem to go on forever, but at least the sun had come out.

At Ansty, where everything is on a bend, we met a hire boat coming the other way under the motorway bridge.  Rather than just steering round the corner he decided to try to stop; I managed to steer round him, and he then went straight into the bridge, across the canal.  Eventually we arrived at Hawkesbury junction.  An Anglo Welsh boat was coming through the bridge, and the lock was in their favour, so I went to drop off a bag a rubbish at the bins.  For some reason there was a volunteer lock keeper, even though this lock has a fall of less than a foot.  He worked the lock while none of the five people on the hire boat even bothered getting off, but when it was our turn I suggested that as it was the only lock of the day, I’d quite like to work it myself.  Adrian then did the turn round the junction.

Charity Dock was its usual mad self, although not any madder this time, and then we passed Marston Junction, the start of the Ashby.

On the outskirts of Nuneaton, they are building the most enormous warehouse I have ever seen.  It dwarfs the ones by the M1.  This is its short side.

We paused in Nuneaton so Adrian could post a birthday card that should really have been on its way already.  Then we passed one of the most photographed telegraph poles on the canal, and moored up in a lovely sunny spot just before the bridge ahead of Springwood Haven.

21 miles, 1 lock.  (68 miles, 26 locks)