Saturday, August 10, 2019

Wot no water?

After a stormy night Graham set us off towards the Mailbox to fill our water tank and dispose of our rubbish. Round the corner and head towards the water point but the IMG_4321strong wind had other ideas and pushed Jannock across the canal away from the mooring bollards – so, no point in trying to recover that manouvre so we continued on towards Edgbaston instead – we can get a water fill later.

At the University some enterprising individuals have added to the collection of innovative boats. The Hydrogen powered boat is still at its usual mooring, we hope its being used as a floating classroom as the brambles growing through the cable trunking on the roof tell that it hasnt needed any Hydrogen for a while. The Pod boats are the shiney new interesting ones. Todays weather suggestsIMG_4323 that wind and waves are also worth a look  ;^)

At 10:00 Graham pulled onto the Bourneville moorings for a change of clothes, which included proper waterproofs and then we were off again. At Kings Norton we turned round the exceeding tight turn and through the gillotine lock onto the North stratford canal.

As we approached the top of Lapworth flight the weather improved all except the stron sideways gusts of wind which made moving into the next lock very difficult. Hidden in the wall alongside the top lock we IMG_1507found a painted stone which we’ll have to move to another towpath location on the canal.

Towards the bottom we found ourselves following another boat who had pulled out from visiting the cafe but they were experienced and did back set some locks for us – unfortunately we didnt get chance to thank them properly as they went down towards Stratford.

We stopped below lock 18 to fill our water tank and Brenda walked the rubbish down to the skips in the CaRT yard before continuing through 19 and 20 to moor for the night in the GU Link. We also took the opportunity of using the shower in the sani-station instead of the one on the boat – it’s nice to have some elbow room.

We were impressed by the skills of the steerer of a Viking afloat hireboat who managed to reverse his boat through the narrows and past us to moor infront of us – very well done and didn’t touch any of the craft moored on either side of the canal.

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