Wending to Wales: Day 21

The Whitchurch Arm moorings were very quiet, although the towpath is a very popular dog walking route.  It rained in the night and was still trying this morning when we left at about 8am, although it was never enough to make it worth putting a coat on.  There is no right turn out of the arm because it’s too tight, so while I went the 200m or so to the winding hole, Adrian waited by the bridge to lift it.  Once we were heading in the correct direction again, we were soon at Grindley Brook Locks.  A single hander was on the service point and wanted to wait for the lockies to come on duty, so we headed down the staircase.

In fact the lockies were already about, it’s just that they do a load of checks on everything before they start helping boaters.  At the three individual locks, we started meeting boats coming up.  At the bottom lock, I walked ahead to see if there was anything coming through the old rail bridge, which is a bit like a tunnel.  There was, so Adrian held back until they were through.

The weather was cheering up a bit.  Povey’s Lock is very rural, and seems raised above the surrounding landscape.

Individual locks came and went, and we passed numerous boats going the other way.  At Wrenbury, Adrian got off with the key of power to do the bridge, but a lady was already there from a boat coming the other way.  So they came through and then we did.

We’d made very good progress, partly due to meeting so many boats at locks and never really having to turn one, so we moored up in Wrenbury and took a footpath across a field and through the churchyard to the village green and the very well stocked shop.  We bought a loaf and a few other things, and walked back.  The church is built of red Cheshire stone.

We had lunch, then set off again.  We met more boats at Baddily Locks, and more at Swanley.  Just beyond Swanley Bridge Marina  the fuel boats, Mountbatten and Jellico were moored up.  They have a couple of other working boats there too.

As it was still quite early (and not raining, like it might be tomorrow) we decided we’d go down Hurleston Locks as well.  There was a boat about to go down, after an Andersen hire boat came up the top lock.  They thought they had something round their prop — they did, a tent!  We’d finally run out of boats going the other way, so we were following the boat down, and they weren’t as efficient as us so we kept having to wait.

At the bottom lock, there was a boat to come up, but they couldn’t get into the lock because the downhill boat was waiting for someone to come through the bridge.  There was a lot of hanging about going on!

We finally come down and I walked to the bridge to check for traffic.  There was a boat coming from the north who wanted to turn into the Llangollen, so he held back while Adrian turned south.

We slotted into a space on the moorings just south of the junction bridge.  We suspect it was left because of a bit of Shroppie shelf sticking out, but we’ve deployed the tyres and we seem to be fine.  There’s now a chicken in the oven roasting.

14 miles, 19 locks.  (252 miles, 153 locks)