Willoughby Friday 4 September 2015

Starting at our normal 10 am, out neighbours had left at 7-30 we continued south meeting a lot of traffic, something that we are not use to now. I said last night how we had been travelling beside the railway, this is what it was like when we came round from behind the hill.

We had a short stop at Brownsover for Diana to visit Tesco and me Halfords, I didn’t get what I wanted and what I did get doesn’t fit, I should have known better.
There is a lot of work going on on the estate so they have closed the access from the towpath as at the moment it would lead straight into a building site, but they have laid a path right up to the towpath so once its open again it will be a lot better. While this work is going on the water point is out of use as they have had to cut the supply to it. Its covered with a black bag with an unofficial notice on it at the moment, I wonder if CRT know about it.

At Rose Narrowboats we passed two Bantam Tugs, I think that Rose do a bit of work for CRT now as last time we were this way their boats were being used to cut back offside vegetation. The green one has their web information on it.
As we approached the bridge one of the chaps walked over towards it, I expected him to cross it but to my surprise he opened it for us before going into the office. This has never happened to us before. On the slipway was another work boat, I don’t know if it was their own or CRT’s.

We met a loaded ex working boat in Newbold Tunnel, the noise as he came in at the far end was something else. As it was dark I didn’t get the boats name, but I bet someone out there knows which one it was. We also met a family of swans who were very well behaved.

We didn’t meet any boats on Barby Straight but I did notice one of the moorings is up for sale with a 90 foot canal frontage.

Barby Marina have started to put up a building since I was this way last and also have Alpacas or Lamas to keep the grass down, but I couldn’t see much else had changed. By now the canal was very quiet so we carried on for a bit finally mooring for the night a little after 6 pm at Willoughby 

Today’s Journey

16 miles, 3 Locks in 6 hours