Cold, mud and kingfishers

Friday 26^th April; Between bridges 7-8 to Cowley, near Gnosall, between bridges 30-31

It was a glorious sunny morning when I pulled back the curtains, though there was frost on the ground when I took the dog out.  We decided to do a few tidying jobs before we set off, which wasn’t till 10.30, with the larks singing high above in the sunshine.

Lovely open mooring

It was still chilly once we were moving, so we stayed well wrapped up although we did see one hardy soul in shorts.  

Yellow rapeseed beyond the snowy cherry blossom

There has been a towpath closure before Brewood for a little while – the bedrock has split, and although I am sure you could scramble over it they decided to close the path for safety reasons.  The pictures aren’t very clear – of course the best view is while you are switching your camera on, or focusing – but it looks to be a big thing to repair.

 

There are several ‘must photograph’ spots along the Shroppie, and this is one, though I nearly didn’t bother.

Avenue Bridge

Once there must have been an avenue to some big house, but Nicholson’s shows nothing and I haven’t done any research.  Now it is mostly overgrown, though there is a footpath over it.  We didn’t particularly want to stop in Brewood – the butcher has unfortunately closed down and although we could have gone up and got cake, we didn’t need bread so we didn’t stop.  As Alchemy has noted, the Countrywide Cruisers fleet is looking distinctly worn, although we did spot one boat apparently with a new livery. 

After a while Dave took Jess for a walk along the towpath, so no photos for a while!  I can’t multitask while I am steering.  At the boatyard just past the Stretton aqueduct, someone was working on a boat called Little Kingfisher.  Just then there was a high-pitched Tseee! and a real one flew past – one of the few times I have seen one and Dave hasn’t.  He luckily got back on board with the dog just before an extremely boggy stretch just before Wheaton Aston lock.  We managed to squeeze onto the moorings between the winding hole and the bridge for a lunch stop.  After lunch we had to wait for the previous customer to return before pushing over to Turner’s for fuel and a gas bottle.

We cruised on in intermittent sunshine, seeing a couple more kingfishers though none were considerate enough to pose for a photo.  The towpath was extremely muddy in places.

We were beginning to get cold, and started looking out for a mooring.  The first one we had earmarked had about 6 boats on it, so we went on a bit past bridge 30 where we had a spot marked on our Nicholson’s, though it’s not on Waterway Routes.  It had a good edge, was empty and also had a short stretch of armco which we snaffled.  As the edge was good and the weather not bad, Dave washed the port side and polished it too.  A couple of hours later a cold-looking chap arrived, armed with a boat hook.  He had clearly been testing the depth for mooring and not surprisingly, his boat moored in front of us.  There is a bit of the shelf here but once you stop moving around, the boat stops bumping.  We will get around to sorting out our fenders one day – we left the go-kart tyres on Chuffed when we sold her.

And a lovely view on the offside too

10 miles, 1 lock