We made a reasonably early start this morning at quarter to nine with a view to spending the afternoon at Shugborough Hall. The weather stayed fine all day but didn’t warm up until this afternoon. Passing through Stafford, CRT have carried out a lot of spot dredging with the spoil on the offside bank.
Work is still ongoing at Tixal but there was no one on site today.
Tixal lock was with us as we had just met a boat, this is one of the few places that still a company marker on the offside. At Great Haywood Junction we turned left as the water tank was getting low but had a short wait as there were already two boats there. Once we were full we dropped back and winded in the junction and then headed down through Haywood Lock and moored to visit Shugborough Hall. We crossed the River Trent on the horse bridge with its alcoves to allow the pedestrians to get out of the way of the horses, today they are handy to get out of the way of cyclists . When we arrived at the Hall we found they closed on Tuesdays. As it was a nice afternoon we had a walk round the grounds of the Hall before returning to Harnser and moving on again. We had our first queue of the trip at Colwich lock with two boats waiting to go down. We carried on to Taft Bridge where we topped up with diesel and then moored for the night on the towpath side almost opposite.
9.75 miles 4 locks 1 junction 2 canals in 5 hours.
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