We have made some progress at last! Covering about 20 miles today, we are now just outside Stenson. We were going to stop at Shardlow for a while this morning, as it is a lovely village, but there were few moorings available and the ones there were were a bit tight so we decided to give it a miss and carried on.
After the luxury of an electric lock at Sawley things got harder and harder as we went on. I will have muscles like popeye soon! The locks are quite large (10ft plus drop), the paddles are stiff and the gates heavy. Weston lock is particularly violent on the fill and I nearly flooded the boat when I opened the ground paddle too far and Ken couldn’t keep the boat at the back of the lock! I won’t be doing that again, will I!
Stenson Lock is the first one we’ll do tomorrow (I just couldn’t manage any more today!) and thankfully the last ‘biggie’, 12ft 4in drop. After this the canal narrows and the locks are singles, thank God!
Ken has been fishing most evenings, this evening being very productive. Be sure to check out the photo of his HUGE catch, unmissable!
Burton on Trent beckons tomorrow. How we will be tortured by all the brewery smells!
Cheers B.
