Hardings Wood

 

Well we haven’t got wet today; it looked a close thing at times. Last night we moored up snuggled against a nice straight bank with a pair of fenders down, we hardly noticed the boats passing, however over night the pound dropped slightly and the early risers made sure we were awake as the boat banged against the heard ledge down near the base plate, so we were up a bit earlier than normal. We had a good run up the flight even with the locks against us. A share boat called Empire was ahead and in the twined locks set the other one for us, we in turn closed up for them as they left with their crew ahead setting the next ones. We then turned the lock for the single hander following us and he closed up for us. When we got to a single lock we all just mucked in. I thing we only met 3 boats all the way to Red Bull services. We stopped at the services to fill with water and dump rubbish before doing another couple of locks before mooring for the night. The Red Bull pub has an interesting growth coming from one of its chimney.

As we passed through the last lock of the day I spotted what I think is a moss growing on the concrete wall below the lock.

 This leaves us just one lock to do before we reach Harecastle tunnel in the morning. Once moored up we took a walk to the tunnel entrance, the bridge over Hardings Wood Junction give quite a good view of where the Kidsgrove Working Mans Club use to stand, soon to be Lidl.

At the tunnel it was easy to see all the way through the tunnel past the rescue boat to the very far end. (white dot just below weeds)

 Makes me wonder why these canoeists who were rescued (I am not sure they needed rescuing) didn’t just exit the South end and contact their land team.
One of the boats moored here has a rather interesting "weak link" in the chain holding the front fender.

 

 

 

 

Today's Journey 

3 miles, 11 locks in 3.5 hours.

  Map courtesy of Waterway Routes https://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/

 

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