Shropshire (wind)lass: Day 5

A much nicer day today, with sunshine from the start and not so much of a breeze.  We got some washing under way, and set off at about 9 when the wash part of the cycle had finished.  I walked up to the lift bridge while Adrian brought the boat, and then walked up to the junction, where we turned right, under the junction bridge.

I walked on to the lift bridge on the main line.  A little later, I wondered whether an approaching boat was Debdale, in which we used to have a share.  It was — and as we passed each other, the owners on board said it was the  who’d bought our share.  That was back in 2011, so it’s nice to know it worked out and they still have the share after all this time.

Some of the bridges on this canal are tricky.  Lots of them are at funny angles, and there are often reeds or trees blocking the view.  All you can do is approach slowly and hope nothing is coming the other way.

We had a number of lift bridges, and a one before Whitchurch, an Anglo Welsh boat going the same way as us had just gone through — and kept it up for us.  It meant we overtook them, but said we’d do the next one.  That was the one by the Whitchurch Arm; Adrian jumped off and lifted the bridge, and I waited in a gap on the offside moorings while the hire boat and then a single hander came through.  We had only a little further to go before mooring up at the moorings above Grindley Brook.  There was loads of space, so we just picked a nice spot.  It wasn’t even 12 noon.

A bit later we walked down to the locks and had a toasted sandwich at the Lockside Cafe, while a number of boats went down.  Then we wandered down the rest of the locks, to find a load of boats coming up.  One of them was a Braidbar, No 95, with new owners on board.  They’ve renamed the boat from Autumn Years to Tilly 2, as their previous boat was called Matilda.

This afternoon, Adrian had a call, we’ve been down for the compulsory ice cream, and I’ve made a chicken and mushroom pie with the leftover roast chicken.  Later we’re planning to wash the towpath side of the boat, which is very dusty.

6 miles, 0 locks.  (45 miles, 15 locks)

Wending to Wales: Day 12

We had a really lovely evening last night with Billy and Sheila who used to own the Nantwich Canal Centre.  We walked up to their house, had drinks in the garden, and the dinner on the patio.  We haven’t seen them since the end of the first lockdown, when we collected Briar Rose from their safe keeping — so there was a lot to catch up on.

This morning we left at 8, and it was rather murky to start with.  Not far away were the two Swanley Locks.

At the Baddiley Locks we followed a boat up the bottom one, but met boats at the next two.  Then it’s a bit of a run into Wrenbury, where Adrian worked the first of the manual lift bridges.

At Wrenbury Mill, the ABC staff were getting hire boats ready for new customers.  The bridge alongside is electrified.  Adrian let some cars cross before operating the Key of Power.  Some walkers were fascinated as they’d never seen anything like it before.

At the next bridge we’d caught up with the boat in front, and they waved us through which was nice of them.  Marbury Lock was in our favour  and then a boat arrived to go down.  There’s a nice lock cottage there too.

We stopped for a brief lunch stop on the Shropshire Union Canal Society moorings above the lock, and we got yet more washing going (yesterday’s was towels so doesn’t count!).  The boat behind also pulled in for lunch.  Adrian worked the single locks at Quoisley, Willey More, and Povey’s, then I did the six at Grindley Brook.  Lots of the by washes on this canal are fierce, but at Grindley Brook they seem doubly so.  As we waited at the bottom a long hire boat was coming dow, and had great difficultly getting past us because of being pushed over towards the bank.  If anything, the next two are even worse.

At the staircase of three locks I went to check in with the volunteer lock keepers, one of whom turned out to be a chap we’d seen at Hurleston yesterday.  A single boat was already going up, and they decided we could follow, so it was straight in.  The locks are deep and need a bit of management.

Once up, we stopped on the water point to top up, then moved along to the far end of the visitor moorings.  It’s a lovely quiet, shady spot, which is good because the temperature shot up again at lunchtime.  There’s a field of sweetcorn behind the towpath hedge — we can’t believe the amount being grown in these parts. Since Red Bull, we’ve seen almost nothing but sweetcorn growing; maybe this area is particularly good for it, or maybe there’s some incentive for farmers.  Anyway, once moored up we walked back to the cafe for ice creams; my strawberry wasn’t as good as yesterday’s raspberry, but Adrian enjoyed his mint choc chip more.  While we were there, a chap was going up the staircase locks, and the volunteers having gone home he seemed to be making a bit of a pigs ear of it.  The bottom lock had far too much water in it, and eventually it was flowing down the path.  We gave him a hand opening and closing gates, once he’d sorted himself out.

12 miles, 15 locks.  (157 miles, 114 locks)