Wending to Wales: Day 6

We were awake early again and set off at 7.30 once more.  We don’t mind doing longer days at the start of the holiday, because we have done these waters numerous times, and we’d rather give ourselves more time for the less familiar bits.  It was another rather dank morning, but again very still.  It took until almost 9am to get to the top of the Atherstone Locks, where a lone lock keeper filled the top lock for us.

There was a boat going down ahead, so we thought we’d have to turn most of the locks,  it in fact before long we started meeting boats coming up.  Sometimes this worked in our favour, but sometimes it meant a bit of a wait.  I particularly like the top part of the flight, down through the trees.

Boats were starting off from moorings in each of the longer pounds, so there seemed to be a lot of activity.  But above the final two locks we ran out of uphill boats, and a downhill boat was in front of us.  I helped them down, and the lady working the locks kindly refilled the bottom one for us before she left.  The whole flight took about two and three-quarter hours, which is pretty slow.

There’s very pleasant cruising through the Warwickshire countryside, and the sun had come out.  Polesworth has a reputation for me for always meeting boats at the awkward bridges on bends, but today it was fine.  Adrian made lunch with the little we have left over in the fridge — in this case bacon and egg wraps, which were rather nice.  After Alvecote we crossed into Staffordshire; the back gardens of Amington always offer plenty to see, and I’m sure the garden next to Bridge 65 has expanded its collection of ornaments.

Adrian hopped off to go to the Co-op at Bridge 73, while I headed for the lock.  Our friends from earlier were ahead, and there was no-one coming up, so the lady again refilled the bottom lock for us.  Once down we were soon at Fazeley Junction.

We carried straight on towards Fradley.  The pub just beyond the junction had some sort of rather jolly wake going on; they also have a trip boat outside, with a proper ship’s wheel.

Fazeley had been our aim for the day, but it was still only 3pm and it was a lovely sunny afternoon, so we kept going.  I like the next section, which seems very river-like.

We went through Hopwas even though there were plenty of moorings available, but we probably should have stopped by one of the Tamhorn bridges.  We didn’t though, and ended up continuing to Whittington, where we moored immediately after Whittington Bridge at just gone 5pm.  The piling at the bow has a long section with no bolts in place, so the moorings hooks have nothing to hold on to, so I resorted to banging a stake in the ground.

20 miles, 13 locks.  (76 miles, 37 locks)