Live Boating

 Friday 5^th May

Kidsgrove to Barlaston

Another 7.00 start as we wanted to be at the entrance to Harecastle Tunnel by 8.00. We were quickly through the sixth Red Bull Lock that we didn’t do yesterday, and when we arrived near the tunnel, we lined up behind the boats that were already waiting.

 We started through the tunnel at about 8.10, with 3 boats in front of us and 2 or 3 behind us. It took around 35 minutes to go through the tunnel and then we continued on our way towards Stoke-on-Trent.

On our way into the tunnel.

And out at the other end.

Near Etruria came the five Stoke Locks. It was slow work going down these locks as we were still following one of the boats that had been through the tunnel in front of us. We had to refill every lock, but we did have help from people off boats following us.

Just one more lock, Trentham Lock, before we stopped for the day. Our mooring is close to the Wedgwood Museum, so after having a late lunch, we walked up to the site and spent over an hour looking at the exhibits.

Mooring with Wedgwood in the background.

Josiah Wedgwood

What is now called the V & A Wedgwood Collection is fascinating, but the cup of tea we had from the van in the grounds was less than interesting!

As we walked back to the boat, we had a shower of rain. Given that the forecast for today, had been for rain from midday, possibly with thunderstorms, we thought we had escaped very lightly. Both today and yesterday were mainly sunny, though there was a strong cold wind yesterday.

Today's fluffies.

Today’s miles and locks – 11.00 miles    7 locks      

Total miles and locks – 247.25 miles 160 locks