Today was forecast to be the best day of the week — with tomorrow probably the worst, with possibly a storm coming through. It was bright when we set off at 8.45, having got some washing under way already. Adrian walked up to the two remaining Audlem Locks, both of which needed emptying. Above there, we crossed into Shropshire, and the sun made seeing anything quite hard work; it did make the countryside look beautiful though.
Adderley Locks come fairly soon, and while the bottom one needed emptying we then met a boat coming down, and then a second downhill boat as we neared the top.
The stretch between Adderley and Market Drayton is not a favourite. There’s a bit in a wood — and even the cutting is too shallow to be dramatic. Then there’s a long line of offside moorings, then a bit of scrub land, and then a busy road to go under. What’s more, the sun had stayed north of us, while over us it was decidedly drizzly. We stopped on the Market Drayton water point to fill the tank, and the sun caught up with us, at least temporarily.
We were badly in need of logs for the fire, so pushed across to Talbot Wharf. They don’t have much of their service mooring showing at the moment because of winter moorers, so we started with the bow in the gap so several bags of logs could be loaded on the well deck. Their diesel price was 85p which seemed pretty good, so we thought we’d fill up too — so pushed the bow out alongside the moored boat so we could get the stern close to the pump. Once all that was dealt with, we went through the bridge and moored up, almost opposite Jubilee. We had lunch of some parsnip and apple soup I made yesterday afternoon, and later walked into town for a small top-up shop from Asda.
Today hasn’t been the sunny day forecast, and tomorrow’s forecast now doesn’t look so bad. We’d thought about getting a few more miles under our belts today, just in case tomorrow really is stormy, but decided we’d stick to our plan and stay here for the night.
5 miles, 7 locks. (14 miles, 22 locks)
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