Monday
22 April
Bright and sunny again. After our weekend at home, our friend Terry drove us to Nuneaton station as the buses were not
running early enough on Bank Holiday Monday. We could all have had an extra 15
minutes in bed as the train was late! Having arrived at Stoke station, we
walked back to Festival Park Marina and prepared to leave. It was 11.30 as we
left the marina under a lift bridge where our chimney had a slight disagreement
with the bridge platform.
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| Onto the Caldon |
We turned onto the Caldon Canal and decided to stop to take
on water and do a pump out. The automatic one was out of order (grrrr!!!) so we
had to do a manual one – enough to put you off boating for life! We eventually
got away and decided to have lunch on the move as we had quite a long day
planned. We had a slight delay at the staircase locks as there was already a
boat going up and then one due to come down. But there were plenty of people
available to help and we got through reasonably quickly. Then on to Planet Lock
where there was a boat just coming out so we did that one very quickly. There are a few remnants of the old Potteries.
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| The old and the new. |
The
next excitement was a lift bridge – such power, stopping traffic to let the
boat through. Engine Lock was next –
very deep and very heavy to work. Then two more lift bridges, one of which was
already being raised to let a boat coming towards us through. They very kindly
let us through as well.
The five Stockton Brook Locks were not without interest. There are a couple of interesting sculptures.
At
the second, a young girl was coming towards us along the towpath more or less
carrying her bicycle. She couldn’t push it because the inner tube had come out
from the tyre and was dangling free. Steve and another man managed to get the
tube back where it belonged and the tyre back on the wheel. As another boat was
approaching the lock, we had to leave, but the girl had phoned her mum who was
coming to collect her.
As we approached Lock 4, we could see that there was a boat
in it ready to come down, but nothing much was happening. I walked up to find a
‘Marie Celeste’ – a boat sitting there and no-one on board. After a minute or
two, a man hurried up and explained that he was single handing and had not been
able to pull in to the side after leaving Lock 5, so had continued to Lock 4
and then returned to Lock 5 to close the bottom gate. (He couldn’t pull in
because of boats moored on the lock mooring.) I worked him and our boat through
and then as Lock 5 was set for us, we were soon at the top of the flight and we
moored up a bit further on between bridges 28 and 29. By this time it was 5.30
and we were ready for a break!
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| A small adjustment needed (see para.1 above) |
Locks 9 Miles 8.00 Total
Locks 46 Total Miles 73.75
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