Friday 21st August

Decided to get away early and have breakfast after we had a few locks under our belt. We left at 7.30am and did 10 locks in 2 and a half hours before stopping for breakfast at Hassell Green. It is usually a busy mooring site but there was only 1 boat there and very few boats moving on the canal. We set off again and many of the locks are duplicated. Some in good condition and others needing a lot of work.

There was always quite a strong warm wind coming from the south but after about 5 locks it became much stronger and it was very difficult to get the boat going as it emerged from a lock as the wind just pushed it to the side before we could pull away into the channel. At one lock we spent at least 20-30 mins trying different ideas before we got going again. There were no walkers or boaters to help. In total we did 20 locks - probably our single-day record for this holiday!

We moored at Church Lawton at 2.45 and after a very late lunch we had a look at the church - outside only as it was locked, and also picked some blackberries from along the towpath as can be seen in a very posed photo of Graham!