A beautiful day to be cruising

Saturday 14^th October; Baswich to Boggs Lock

It was raining when we woke up but we trusted the Met Office that it would be dry later.  Well it was, except for the twenty minutes or so after I had come out of the Co-op with the Saturday paper!  I ran most of the way back to the boat as I’d omitted to wear my waterproof – it took me about 6 minutes, with a view of a rainbow all the way.

Making ready to leave

We set off about 9.15.  The cattle were making a lot of noise as they walked along behind the hedge past the works for the Stafford link, and the first work party volunteer must have had to drive carefully as they came by.  The canal follows the course of the Penk pretty closely, and we could see through the trees that there was extensive flooding.  I suppose with the Penk and Sow sharing the flood plain there will always be more water around.  Once we had passed Radford Bridge we could see much better, as at regular intervals the hedge had been neatly cut (and the grass mown) to create viewpoints.

There must have been hundreds, even thousands, of geese, ducks and gulls on the waters.  It must be an amazing place for winter bird-watching.  The houses on the far side must have wonderful views.

The whole area is a nature reserve known as Radford Meadows.  Even though I had the binos to hand, I couldn’t manage to ID anything more than mute swans, mallards and the ubiquitous Canada geese… though there was probably a coot or two, maybe a pochard, and who knows how many different kinds of gulls. 

The sun was out, and although Deptmore lock was hard work, we had a fabulous morning’s cruise.  It was quite nippy, but we had the right clothes on and with nicely spaced locks there was time to enjoy a cup of tea between locks – the insulated mugs are now in use!  At Park Gate lock I put my feet in the grooves worn by decades (or more) of boaters’ boots bracing to pull the bottom gates closed.

I love to see - and use - this evidence of boaters long gone.  The trip boat based at the boatyard was ready above to take the lock with its first trip of the weekend.  After a glorious morning’s cruising we moored by the carefully tended gardens opposite the mobile home park at Penkridge.  Some of the householders along here really take care of their bits of the towpath, with some lovely displays of late summer dahlias.  But the photo I took was of the bench and free poo bags provided by this thoughtful gardener.

I wonder if this has reduced the amount of uncollected poo?  I hope so.

After lunch we carried on up Penkridge lock, where we disposed of the rubbish along with some netting picked up at Deptmore lock, and then Filance (with its pathetic excuse for a lower lock landing), where a visitor to the area was delighted to help close a gate and find out how locks work.  Then all we wanted to achieve was to get past the stretch of canal which keeps company with the M6, between Otherton and Rodbaston locks, and find somewhere fairly quiet to moor.  We kept a weather eye on the black clouds ahead, but luckily they all crossed the canal before we reached them!  Up Boggs lock we went, where a boat was approaching above.  As we looked back, there was a beautiful rainbow against a black cloud but we were headed into sunshine!  I am so pleased that the rainbow was actually visible in these photos that I am including them all.

We moored in the pound between Boggs and Brick Kiln locks, at about 4.30 and as the rainbow was still just about visible I managed another snap.

While Dave walked Meg I laid the fire and got tea on the go.  A passing boater mentioned how low the pound was.  We hadn’t actually noticed, but it was indeed.  So after a small fishing dinghy went by at about 5.30 I walked back to check that Boggs lock was properly closed up – it wasn’t, they had left the top gate open.  I wondered whether to empty the lock above us, Brick Kiln, to get another lockful of water, but the bottom gates were leaking so I left that one alone.  We slackened our mooring ropes a bit, to avoid being left hanging if the level does drop a bit.  At 6.45 – almost dark by now – we were surprised to see a boat coming by.  It was Halsall the fuel boat.  So we thought, if there is enough water for him to get through, we will probably be ok, as he was going up.  We hope to catch up with him in the morning to get some coal.

8½ miles, 9 locks, about 6 hours.