Well we went to bed in bright star light and about -2° and woke up to heavy rain this morning. Even though we had about 3.5mm of rain fall a lot or the grass and tow path was still white. The rain stopped around 9am but left a very murky morning when we set off at 10.30 am. We stopped to fill with water just above Grindley Brook, thankfully our hose wasn't frozen, I had forgotten to bring it in last night, then down to the service block to dump the rubbish before tackling the locks, I hire boat pulled in behind us, a Norwegian couple out for a fortnight who thought the weather was fine.
The middle lock of the staircase was empty so I needed to bring that up to level as well as filling the top chamber. The area around the locks was like a skating rink with rain on top of ice, the walk boards across the gates were no better, so great care was taken. The Norwegian lady assisted by operating the gates on one side for me. The next three locks and the tow path between them was no better.
When we woke up the temperature was just +2° and by now it had dropped to +1.5° but the murk slowly lifted and the sun came out making it quite pleasant. We carried on down to below Quoisley Lock and round the bend to moor for the night, by the time we stopped conditions on the ground had improved a lot but it had started to rain again and the wind had picked up.
Again we are on one of the 48hr Visitor moorings, there are loads of these on this canal, a majority of them provided by The Shropshire Union Canal Society. 
Today's Journey
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