Friday 13 March 2015 Stafford Boat Club.

It rained all night and was still raining this morning we we set off, a total of 9.3 mm. There is an old saying “Rain before 7 fine before 11” well it must be BST as the rain stopped at 11-30 am. by which time we were outside the Anglo Welch yard at Gt Haywood filling with water and warming up with a cup of coffee.

We slid nicely back from the water point with the stern tracking to port making it easy to line up with the bridge on the junction to head off along the Staffordshire and Worcester canal There were just two boats moored on Tixal wide and at Tixal Lock, with the leaves off the trees I was able to at last get a photograph of the railway tunnel entrance, as you can see it is quite ornate as you would expect for a structure on the Shugborough Estate. The tunnel is 777 yards long and built on a curve. You can see how mucky the weather was and quite cool at 5°C. I felt quite sorry for all the new born lambs in the field beside the canal.

There is a nice example of a “Turn Over” or “Snake” bridge at Milford. These were designed to allow the horse towing a Narrowboat to cross the canal when the tow path changed sides without unhooking the tow line. These was achieved with the horse walking along the left bank and under the bridge onto the curved ramp. up and over the bridge, then down on the right hand side to continue on its way along the right hand bank. It was just passed here that the RCR  offices were burnt down last November (see 27 Nov 2014 Blog) The site has now been cleared ready to erect new units.

We carried on to The Stafford Boat Club where we were greeted by Peter the Harbour Master and directed to our mooring for the night just beside the footbridge.

Today’s Journey 6½ Miles, 2 Locks, 1 Junction in 3 hours.

Since we have been here of course the sun has come out, still never mind.