Splendid Isolation Cruise - Week 6

 Monday 9th November - Hockley Heath to Kings Norton

We set off from Hockley Heath and cruised gently towards the mooring for Wedges Bakery.  Moored for a short time on a very, very muddy towpath and Dave went and bought cake and sandwiches, always delicious!  

At the end of the Stratford Canal is the guillotine lock, well decorated with graffiti now, and looking very colourful.

The junction at the end of the Stratford Canal is with the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.  Under the bridge the canal goes to Birmingham, but we turn left and head towards Worcester.  We moored up for the night just after the turn alongside Kings Norton Park and Playing Fields.

9.75 miles, 1 lift bridge, 4 hrs 24 mins

Tuesday 10th November - Kings Norton to Tardebigge Top Lock

Toby had been for an early morning walk on the playing fields at Kings Norton, he had a lovely time rolling in the dewy grass and getting quite wet and muddy, he is in for a good wash down when we get back to Worcester. 

This is the remains of a turning circle for steam and then diesel tugs that used to pull barges through the Wast Hills tunnel, they spent their whole time going up and down through the tunnel, faster than legging the boats through which is how it was originally done.

Coming to the end of the tunnel with a clear view of the end of the tunnel.  I can’t decide whether there is a kink in the tunnel or not, when we entered we couldn’t see the other end, so was it due to the slight mist in the air or is the end obscured by a slight bend? 

Looking back at the portal as we left the tunnel, quite a deceptive view.  Taking 23 years to build, the canal took coal and industrial products south and brought grain, farm produce and building materials to Birmingham. The Wast Hill Tunnel is 2492m (1.55 miles) long and took us 20 minutes to complete.

After passing through Tardebigge Tunnel we pulled over to empty rubbish and fill up with water, then dropped down through Tardebigge Top Lock before mooring for the night at the Visitor Moorings. This is Toby enjoying a walk to Tardebigge Church.

8.75 miles, 1 lock, 3 tunnels, 3 hrs 36 mins.

Wednesday 11th November - Tardebigge Top Lock to Stoke Prior Top Lock

Wednesday morning we woke to a lovely day and some very welcome help from Tom, a volunteer with Canal and River Trust, who went ahead of us and filled and opened the locks.  

Clare and Pete from nbBilly, who are moored in Diglis Basin, also came out to help us down the flight of 30 locks.  Dave and I took it in turns to drive the boat, which meant three people were around to get us through the locks as fast as possible.  We were delighted to find that we completed the flight in 2 hours 20 minutes, another record for us, many thanks to everyone for their much appreciated help! 

2.5 miles, 30 locks, 2 hrs 48 minutes

Thursday 12th November - Stoke Prior Top Lock to Oddingley

We set off from Stoke Prior Top Lock and made our way down to the hire base at the bottom lock, we had to wind our way through the masses of hire boats moored up because of the lockdown and the end of the season.  There was plenty of evidence of work being carried out on the boats ready for the start of the new season.  

We pulled over opposite the Boat and Railway to top up with water before carrying on to our last mooring of the cruise at Oddingley, where we started with our first mooring almost 5 weeks ago.

We went for a walk up to the church and stopped to take a photo of Ella moored up, there was one other boat ahead of us, but usually this is quite a busy and popular mooring.  

6.5 miles, 11 locks, 1 tunnel, 4 hrs 42 mins

Friday 13th November - Oddingley to Diglis Basin

We woke to a beautiful blue sky, stunning sunshine and light winds for our last day of cruising.  Toby enjoys the quiet of the towpath, no one to bark at, no swans to warn off, he loves checking out his own private stretch of canal!  

  

As we got to Tibberton we found that the towpath was closed all the way down to the lock besides Sixways Stadium.  A team of workers were digging up the towpath ready for tarmac to be put down.  I do wonder why, and I suspect it is for cyclists, so they can go even faster!!!  I was not impressed!  

As we approached the final two locks, Clare (nbBilly) joined us to help us through the locks and then to open the swing bridge into the Basin.  This was a real bonus for us as it meant Dave could cruise this stretch for the first time as he usually walks from Sidbury Lock to open the swing bridge!  We moored up back on our pontoon and settled the boat in for the next few months until we are off again, hopefully about March/April next year!  

Some thoughts -

- a delightful cruise through the changing of the seasons, autumn through to the start of winter

- a new destination and new waterways visited, Market Harborough and the Leicester line

- experiencing the Watford and Foxton Staircase Locks and meeting some super volunteer lock keepers. 

- the odd sensation of cruising when virtually no one else is, quite an eerie feeling, but I have to say most enjoyable! 

- an out and back cruise rather than a circular, through necessity rather than choice.

Statistics

Miles - 196.25

Locks - 290

Hours - 125.75

Tunnels - 14

Moveable Bridges - 10

Splendid Isolation Cruise - Week 5

 

Monday 2nd November - Bridge 10 Norton Junction

Today we have decided to stay on our mooring as it is incredibly windy and we don’t like cruising in high winds.  A hire boat, moored ahead of us has been told to return their boat to a hire base in the opposite direction, they will need to reverse back to the junction and turn their 70ft boat against the wind.  They did it with the help of three boaters and several poles!!!

In the afternoon we went for a walk along the canal and down the Buckby Locks until we got to Whilton Marina where we visited the cafe for takeaway cake and then walked back again!  

Tuesday 3rd November - Bridge 10 Norton Junction to Nethercote Bridge 101

A much better day, light winds and sunshine!  A cruise through Braunston Tunnel and down the locks, then stopped in Braunston to go shopping and put on water. 

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We continued to a delightful spot on the Oxford Canal with open views across farmland.  We moored for the evening in tranquil peace and quiet.  When we came this way 2 weeks ago, it was like the M25 with boats passing in every direction, but this time we only saw a couple of boats all evening.  

 Dave took Toby for a walk on his own, apparently he got to this bridge over the canal and refused to go any further, a speech a bubble might say “Where do you think you are going?”  Needless to say they didn’t have a very long walk!!!  

6.25 miles, 6 locks, 1 tunnel, 4 hrs 36 mins.

Wednesday 4th November - Nethercote Bridge to Bickley’s Bridge 26

A lovely day for cruising, sunshine, light breeze and no rain!  We set off from our mooring, turned right at the junction and headed for the Calcutt Locks, no one in sight so a gentle descent at our own pace.  We called in at Ventnor Marina to fill up with diesel and buy a new gas cylinder, unfortunately their computer system had failed and they could only take cash, we had no cash but the boat beside us which was also waiting for diesel and had an account, offered to pay for us and we paid them back by bank transfer.  Many thanks to nbOlimpia for helping us! 

We carried on to the Stockton Locks, (Di and Mark we miss you) and after the first 2 locks we let a sole boater catch us up and we carried on sharing the locks.  It was fascinating watching the boater handle his boat and work the locks as a solo boater, I was fascinated!  

We moored for the night at Long Itchington, having made up a day’s travelling.  

7.5 miles, 13 locks, 5 hrs 36 mins.

Thursday 5th November - Bickley’s Bridge 26 to Radford Semele

A beautiful start to the day, the most wonderful cruising weather, and would you believe not a boat moving!  We did pass several hire boats moored up, which made us wonder - are they still hiring boats out? 

We passed a site of the work being done for the HS2, the route of the railway passes close to here, but this is the support area for the work to be done, an eye sore!  

Coming to the end of the 10 locks today, this is heading down to moor alongside the village of Radford Semele, one of our favourite moorings.  We had to say that it was slightly eerie, cruising along the waterways with no one else moving, but we have alerted the Canal and River Trust to the fact that we are on the move with the intention to return to our home mooring as soon as possible.

We moored up for the night and settled down for the evening.  Dave captured this stunning sunset from the boat, love the reflection on the side of the boat, beautiful!  

A dreadful evening with Toby who spent the whole evening barking at the fireworks, we were all so stressed by the time they had stopped! 

4.75 miles, 10 locks, 4 hrs 12 mins

Friday 6th November - Radford Semele to Cape Visitor Moorings

Today we travelled from Radford Semele to do our last big shop in Warwick and then continue on to Cape Locks Visitor Moorings.  A very quiet cruise, plenty of moored boats and no-one moving. 

We climbed up the two Cape Locks and moored at the Visitor moorings.  This is the pub at the top of the locks, usually busy with people sitting in the garden beside the lock, but very quiet with  people on the boats and a sign saying that take aways are available.  You wonder how these establishments are going to survive.

We went for a walk along the canal to the bottom of the Hatton Locks, where we will start our ascent of the locks tomorrow morning.  The lock keepers cottage is now holiday accommodation, although there is no vehicle access to the cottage.

Our mooring for the night, Ella is tucked away between two other boats, golden light shining on the paintwork.

Tonight we followed some advice for dogs stressed by fireworks.  We had to ignore the barking, contain him in a safe area (shut the dog gates) and play classical music.  I am seriously impressed with the effect classical music has on Toby, he was much calmer and we all had a better evening!  

4.5 miles, 2 locks, 3 hrs 42 mins 

Saturday 7th November - Cape Locks to Tom o’ the Woods

We woke to another sparkling sunny day and set off to the Hatton Locks, we arrived just before 9am and met our two volunteer lock keepers, John who works the locks on a regular basis and cycles up and down the flight ahead of the boat, and Paul who usually works the Wilmcote Locks on the Stratford Canal and fancied trying his hand at some wide locks.  We decided to put a timer on to see how quickly we could get up the flight.

After the first few locks, the majesty of this flight opens out ahead of you and you get this stunning view of the locks ahead.  Hatton's famous 'stairway to heaven' flight of 21 locks has a fascinating history. State of the art locks were built at Hatton to fight off stiff competition from the roads and railways and widened in the 1930s. When the locks were completed, bands played and crowds gathered to watch the Duke of Kent arrive by boat and cut the ribbon.

Towards the top of the locks is Hatton Cafe, it was doing a grand trade all socially distanced and serving only takeaway cakes and baps.  So Dave queued up to buy cake and was able to get this photo of Ella coming into the top lock.

The three musketeers, L to R, John and his bicycle, Paul From Wilmcote Locks and Paul who has been volunteering on these locks for almost twenty years, and has some fascinating tales to tell about the locks!  They were absolutely fantastic, worked really hard and I was delighted to be able to tell them that we had clocked 2 hours 20 minutes from start to finish, a record for us!!! 

We carried on down to Tom o’ the Wood moorings and went for a walk between the two canals, we came out at one of the barrel roofed cottages on the Stratford Canal, now a private dwelling.  The barrel roof mirrors the bridge holes on the canal and when the cottages were built it made sense to use the same format for the roofs!  

A stunning oak tree against the fading light, having shed many of its leaves and just leaving a silhouette of the branches, an abundance of acorns this year has provided a brilliant source of food for the wildlife and the chance for many new oak trees to take root.

Our companions for the night, on the other side of the canal are three small paddocks with an assortment of goats in them, needless to say Toby objected to their presence, but they took absolutely no notice of him!!

7 miles, 21 locks, 1 tunnel, 4 hrs 36 mins.

Sunday 8th November - Tom o’ the Wood to Hockley Heath

A much duller day today, so we hope to complete our day’s cruising before the rain sets in.  We set off and stopped very soon to fill up with water, then a left turn onto the Stratford Canal and then we made our way slowly up the Lapworth 19 Locks.  We had a solo boater ahead of us, so we helped out shutting lock gates for him and made our way sedately up the locks.  There were a lot of people walking the locks, keeping their distance but showing a lot of interest in the boat and how the locks work.

As we got up towards the top the locks became more difficult and finally we came across one which was completely out of action, the gates were ok it was the paddles that were so stiff!!!

The solo boater was on NbFantasy and he had two dogs, one with him on the stern and this one standing on the bow, impressive!  He had come from Cambridge and was taking his boat to the new Marina in Alvechurch.  Glad we could be helpful for him!  

3.75 miles, 19 locks, 2 lift bridges, 4 hrs 36 mins

Splendid Isolation Cruise - Week 4

 Monday 26th October - Market Harborough to Foxton Top Lock. 

Today we made the return journey to the Foxton Locks.  First of all we went into Market Harborough Basin and turned the boat.  Unfortunately it was a little windy and proved to be more difficult than we expected.  By the time we had completed the turn a hire boat had moored on the services mooring so we decided not to stop and continued on our way.  

We passed through the two moveable bridges and stopped to fill up with water and dispose of our rubbish at the junction.  We then moved over to lock waiting mooring and waited for about an hour for two boats to come down the locks.  We had a quick passage up the ten locks with no hold up this time and moored for the evening in the same place as on the way down.

5.75 miles, 10locks, 2 moveable bridges, 4 hours 54 minutes  

Tuesday 27th October - Foxton Top Lock to Welford 

We set off from our mooring  and headed for the Welford Arm, however the weather deteriorated and Dave did all the driving and I stayed down below in the dry and warm.  We don’t often cruise in the wet, but this time we wanted to be sure we were the right side of the closure of North Kilworth Bridge. We turned left onto the Welford Arm and moored up beside the Welford Marina as the arm was full and there were no visitor moorings available.

The short stretch of canal known as the Welford Arm was one of the last canals to be built, completed in 1814. It was created as a feeder canal, drawing water from three reservoirs to feed water to the main Grand Union Canal.  Seven lime kilns were built at the wharf, the largest such site along the Grand Union Canal. These are fascinating brick structures created to burn limestone to make lime. This was used in lime mortar as part of the construction industry and spread as fertiliser on the land. Evidence of the kilns is clearly visible opposite the wharf today and we know that at least some were in use as late as the 1930s.  At one time there were seven pubs here including The Talbot Inn, known to the author Charles Dickens and named in his novel, Bleak House.

We walked down to the two reservoirs, Welford and Sulby, this is the dam that runs between the two reservoirs.  The reservoirs were built to provide water to the summit of the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal.

Welford's Postman Pat was a much loved local landmark on the roadside of the High Street A5199 until he sadly rotted away and collapsed in early 2019.  Carved out of an old tree, he and his cat Jess had been part of Welford since the 1990s.  He has been replaced with a carving from hardwood and mounted on a concrete plinth.  

8.75 miles, 1 lock, 3 hours 24 minutes 

Wednesday 28th October - Welford to Yelvertoft Bridge 20

We made an early start from our mooring on the Welford Arm and cruised in fairly windy weather back up the arm, turned left at the junction and headed for Yelvertoft.  We found a pleasant, very secluded quiet mooring before the visitor moorings and settled for the night.

We went for a walk along the canal to the village of Yelvertoft and found Squisito, an Italian butchers and deli shop on the High Street.  The owners have rebuilt the Victorian butchers shop to house their delightful little shop.  We found some delicious local cheeses and other Italian delicacies.  

The visitor moorings and water point taken from the bridge into Yelvertoft.  Unfortunately Toby had rolled in something nasty and we had to make use of the water point to scrub him down using a poo bag as a glove!!!

Our mooring for the night, field full of cows on one side and open farmland on the other, no other boat in sight although there were some further back through the bridge!  

9.5 miles, 1 lock, 3 hours 30 minutes

Thursday 29th October - Yelvertoft

Due to poor weather conditions we are having a day resting in the boat!  Fortunately the weather dried up in the afternoon and we went for a walk back along the canal to explore the village of Winwick.

Winwick is a tiny medieval village at the end of a series of no through roads.  Our route down to the village was along a barely used metalled road, virtually hidden until you were on top of it.  

A phone box which is still a phone box with a working telephone, can’t remember the last time we saw one of these!  

The village has a school next door to the church, Winwick Manor and Winwick Hall, and a population of about 70 people.  The church dates to the C13 and the current manor house to the C16 but the latter is understood to stand on the site of an earlier manor. The manorial control of the village has changed over centuries but throughout this time the character of the parish has remained agricultural. 

Friday 30th October - Yelvertoft to Crick

Today we decided to move the boat along to the water point, fill up with water, empty rubbish and then to continue the short distance to Crick.  

Yelvertoft Marina is a fairly recent addition to the waterways here, still looks fairly new although it has a fair number of boats moored up.  It has a separate entrance to the slipway and workshops further along the canal.  We moored up again just outside Crick Marina and after lunch decided to walk back into Yelvertoft to visit Sequisito again as I wanted to stock up on the delicious chocolate they sold!

Walking back along the canal we had to go through a field of sheep, quite a lot of them and bizarrely enough they decided to chase after us, not quite the same as being chased by cows but still quite an unsettling sight, several hundred sheep flocking towards us and I wonder why?  Does Toby look like one of them?  Are they trying to rescue him from sheep stealers?  We shall never know!  

2.5 miles, 1 hour 42 minutes

Saturday 31st October - Crick

Another wet and windy day so we decided to stay where we were.  Once the rain had eased up later in the afternoon we went for a walk through the Millennium Wood, quite a young wood but lovely to wander through.

We walked on as far as Crick Wharf with a view to putting on water and disposing of rubbish.  The Moorings was a busy canalside restaurant which was always packed during the Crick Boat show, today it is abandoned and closed down, looking very sad.  The building behind looks almost derelict, although the moorings look very nice, small and quiet rural moorings. 

 Today we have learnt that England is going back into a National Lockdown on Thursday, we have spent a while looking at our options and have decided that we should curtail our cruise and head back to Worcester to comply with the rules.  Plans to visit the Ashby Canal and the Birmingham and Fazeley canal will be shelved for another day.

Sunday 1st November - Crick to Norton Junction

Today we set off and stopped at Crick Wharf for water and rubbish disposal, but it was very windy and we had trouble keeping the boat in to the side! 

We cruised on to the Watford Locks and began the descent behind another boat.

 Once we were in the locks it was fine, but getting into the first lock was a little hairy!  Going down the locks was quite relaxing!  

Getting down the staircase was easy compared to leaving the bottom lock and crossing this pound, the wind was really strong and it was hard work to get the boat straight enough to get into the lock!  

Adrian was our volunteer lock keeper, he had dropped his car keys on the staircase and was looking for them as he helped us down the locks.  Fortunately Dave found them on the ground and handed them back to Adrian.

We continued to the end of the Leicester Line and turned right onto the Grand Union against the wind and moored up where we moored on the way out.  We went for a walk across the fields and back along the fields, muddy and very windy!  

5 miles, 7 locks, 3 hours 6 minutes.