Lock 5 Atherstone Flight

Today’s plan was to moor below Atherstone Locks as the last entry was at 1400 hrs. but that changed.

Soon after setting off we passed a CRT mooring basin that has no boats moored in it. It did however have a couple of geese in residence sitting on the mooring buoys along with a duck.

At the junction we carried straight on towards Tamworth. The Glascote locks were against us and again I found someone had left the top paddle up 3 notches. Looking back a freight train was crossing the canal and every truck was painted with bright graffiti.

By the time we where up the bottom lock a boat was working down the top one so we both had locks ready for us. At the top lock there was a CRT employee who gave us a hand, he was waiting for a tug and pan coming  down, we met them just through the next bridge hole. We had to pass on the wrong side but it was no problem. We soon passed where they were working, replacing the piling, well inserting another layer in front of the old stuff.

Then we actually had some rain and I had to deploy the brolly, all 0.4mm. But it was enough to get you wet. When we came through Polesworth on our way out this was an open piece of land, now its an almost complete bungalow.

Looking at the spill weir the water level didn’t look too bad, but it was heavy going in places due to the bottom being too close to the top.

We stopped at the Grendon Services to top up with water as it was twenty to two and supposedly the last entry up the Atherstone flight was two o’clock with the padlocks going on at Three. It was spot on two when we finished filling with water, just as a boat came by, so now we would be second in the queue in the morning. However when we arrived at the locks a boat had just come down and another was holding the bottom gate open before they turned the lock to come down. We waited expecting the boat ahead to enter the lock, but they didn’t as they couldn’t decide whether to go part way up the flight or not. In the end they said they were staying there so we went up, meeting boats in the next three locks which worked well. One of the bridges now supports some bright graffiti, I don’t thing the artist was paying attention doing the biology lessons. The pounds were down a bit until we got to lock 7 where it looked to be on weir, we went up through lock 6 and moored for the night, only to find we were behind two lots of boating friend who we had not seen for some years.

Today’s Journey  10 miles with 8 locks in 5½ hours