Fradley Junction Coventry Canal Thursday 27 Feb 2014

Well we are just round the corner from last night but it took us all day to get here.

Quite a bit off rain last night which finally made the ducks shut up, boy you know spring is on the way the noise they were making well after midnight last night.

We set off at our normal 10 am in bright sunshine and apart from a couple of showers its been like that all day. We were heading to Barton Turns Marina as that was the last place we could wind before the stoppages. The locks were with us which was handy and we passed one of the other Harnsers on the long term moorings below Hunts Lock.

Below Common Lock a workman was bringing a track driven shreder along the towing path beside the lock. It seems that the boat they are using is unstable with the shredder on the deck, so floats have been fitted to each side of the hull. To pass through a lock they stop, unload the shredder and drive it to the other end of the lock. They then remove the side floats so that they can lock the boat through as its too wide with the floats attached. They then refit the floats and reload the shredder to continue working along the offside bank. Because they have the wrong design of boat its probably taking the best part of a couple of hours per lock. How inefficient can you get. The £25 donation that CaRT asked me for wouldn’t pay to get through the lock let alone fix a breach. All the other gangs we have seen have had the shredder inside the boat, not on top so have not needed floats.

Pushing on we came to the A513 road bridge just above Bagnall Lock which is supporting some fine graffiti on the offside.

Someone has commissioned a very nice wooden bench to be beside Bagnall Lock, I hate to think what it costs, it commemorates we are now entering the National Forest, I expected to see trees but there were no more than I have seen elsewhere.

The river Trent at Alrewas was well down with very  little water going over the weir.  I have not heard how the rest of the Country is getting on with the floods.

We arrived at Barton Turns Marina in the dry which was good, I have been along the stretch of canal that runs parallel to the A38 and the lorries have been sending the spray right across the towing path and onto the canal  and any poor boaters that get in the way. The Marina offers 4 hr visitor moorings along the offside by the marina entrance, so we made use of these, we just tied up and it started raining so lunch was taken, we then went to look at the pub and shops that sit at the back of the marina, maybe we will call in for a meal one evening, its £8-50 for a one night stay. The also sell diesel at a very competitive 82p/lt for heating.

We started our return journey just before half two again in the sun shine but we did have a couple of very small showers and of course the obligatory rainbows but there wasn’t enough rain to wet the dual carriageway along side us. 

We were going to moor somewhere just outside Alrewas but as the weather was fine and rain is forecast for tomorrow we decided to push on and get the locks all done today and turned down the Coventry Canal before mooring for the night at the very end of the visitor mooring, which have filled up over the past couple of days, we are fairly close to the bank, well you can jump it.