Tuesday 1 August 2017

Tuesday 1st August 2017

After a lovely meal last night at the Italian restaurant at Wheelock wharf we woke to dry conditions although rain was forecast for later. We left at a quarter to eight and I should have known what was ahead when I noticed that all the cows who are normally in this field......


..... had decamped and were hiding under the road bridge!

Graham was working most of the locks today so I only took a quick snap of my backward view from the tiller as the lock gates were closing behind me before Graham started filling the lock.


This section of the canal between Wheelock and Kidsgrove is often referred to as "Heartbreak Hill". There are 23 locks in total and it is part of a popular cruising ring for hirers so I guess that they find it quite hard. We did it for the first time in 2013 and found it very tiring although it was a very hot day.
Today it was not so hot! We did the first 10 locks and stopped for coffee just as the rain started. Hassell Green is a popular overnight stopping point but all cafés and pubs have closed and you have traffic noise from the M6. There were not many visiting boats this morning.

Many of the locks are duplicated on this stretch which made for faster passage of boats when the canal was built. Very few now have both lock chambers in operation but this one has an attractive waterfall feature whereas others are just overgrown.


After coffee wet weather gear was the order of the day and we had some very heavy showers. Not just drizzle, real downpours. After 20 locks we reached Church Lawton where we like the mooring so we tied up, sorted out the wet clothes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun which was now streaming through the windows!

Looking back in my boat log for August 1st in other years, more often than not it has rained. We should have taken more notice of the cows this morning!



No comments:

Post a Comment