Friday 20th August
We have made it to Market Drayton and essential supplies have been replenished, by rather a circuitous route back from Morrison’s it has to be said, but more of that later.
We have travelled 3 miles and the 5 Tyrely locks from Goldstone Wharf this morning. It would appear that 3 miles is one of our favourite distances! The water point at the top of the locks was out of action (UFN) which was a bit of a bind but we have enough to last until we leave here so it doesn’t really matter.
We came through the Woodseaves Cutting which is magnificent when you bear in mind it was all cut by hand. There are two really high bridges here which show what the high Bridge in Grubb Street Cutting would look like without it’s central support (see photos). Tyrely Locks are a lovely tree lined flight of locks and someone was coming up at every one except the last one so we sped through them. Just past the locks we met Jeff and Jill on ‘AventGotOne’, coming the other way. We last saw them at Marple about a month ago.
When we arrived here we were helped to moor up by a nice chap who is a member of the Shropshire Union Canal Society and he gave us a very useful moorings leaflet (which we already had but didn’t say) and some tips on how to get to the shops and pubs here! We found our way to the Wetherspoon’s very easily (not mentioned in his list) as we do!
It’s a pity we decided to take a ‘short cut’ back to the canal from Morrison’s later on because we ended up walking miles through a housing estate, after almost ending up in someone’s front garden. When we did emerge on to the towpath we were quite a way from our boat and the bridge we had left at originally. When we make our second trip to Morrison’s tomorrow we will be coming back the way we went!