At 9.30am Lawrence backed us off our mooring, and unlike another Aqua hire boat that crashed, bashed and sideswiped his way out of the marina (in his defense the wind was still gusting quite strongly) Lawrence read the wind and took us out like the old pro that he is. Making the turn to line up the narrow exit.
The moment of truth is nearly upon us
And out we go with not even a kiss
Having turned right, or in nautical terms, starboard, which incidentally a term I won't be using again - way more keystrokes required, we joined the queue and started our journey up the Trent and Mersey Canal.
The sun tried her best to warm us, battling through the grey skies and at times she was quite successful. Under the bridge and
entering Wychnor Lock, the first of the day.
Briefly onto the River Trent
Past a brooding swan
And then its mate
and Wychnor Church parts of which date back to the 13thC
There are still some trees yet to burst into leaf
Approaching Alrewas Lock
which leads us into the pretty village of the same name
Bridge 49, bearing the scars of a couple of centuries of narrowboat abuse, leading to Bagnall Lock on the outskirts of Alrewas.
At Hunts Lock Mike goes forward to help work the narrowboat we had been following all day through the lock. Keepers lock can be seen in the distance.
After working through Keepers Lock we moored up in Fradley Junction just before 1.00pm for a splendid lunch of cumberland sausages and last nights left over curry. Thank you Tim. Washed down with a cup of tea and some walnut cake. We set off again at 2.45 to come into Junction Lock
At the top of the lock one can turn left onto the Coventry Canal, or as we did continue straight on up the T&M.
At the next lock we found ourselves 3rd in the queue. Even with Tim and I helping them through it and and the next two locks it was very slow going. The view ahead from Shade House Lock.
Tim walked off lunch as we traversed Ravenshaw Wood
The bend ahead marks the southern most point of the Trent and Mersey's journey from Preston Brook to Shardlow.
The approach to Wood End Lock, where once again we helped the two boats ahead of us work their way through and where for the first time today there was a boat waiting to come down.
View from the Wood End Lock bridge
From Wood End Lock we pootled on for a further couple of miles and at approx 5.20pm moor up for the night in the quiet countryside before bridge 56 about 1/4 mile from the village of Handsacre.
Due to a combination of a late start, being stuck behind slow boats all day and a too long lunch break we fell well short of our original goal, only making half of our planned distance. However it is fantastic to be back on the canals again and even Lawrence who didn't get to turn left down the Coventry Canal is a happy chappy.
7.8 miles, 10 locks
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