Hillmorton

 An early start for us this morning as we were moored stern to stern with our friends and they push off about 8am. we in turn were away by 8-45am. The weather was slightly more cloudy  and a bit of breeze to keep things fresh. The canal was reasonably busy as we made our way towards Brinklow. A point of note is that about 200 yards south of Johnson's Bridge No.27 an offside Willow tree is in a dangerous state, it hangs out well over the canal but the lower trunk is split wide open, you could easily put your hand right through. I have reported it to C&RT so we will see what happens. 

I have never seen these signs on the towpath before, we only saw one cyclist  making his way along the towpath and needless to say he rode through. We had bit of a delay at Newbold tunnel as the boat ahead wouldn't go forward while there was a boat in the tunnel coming towards him. I must admit I wasn't very gentlemanly and overtook him, after that he did decide to follow me through even with yet another boat entering travelling north. 
Newbold reservoir is now a lovely shade of green, it looks like duckweed and not heavy algae, hopefully not the blue green type.

 We pushed on and found a nice piece of mooring just before bridge 68. However after being there for a short time we felt we may be inconveniencing other boaters being between the bend and the bridge. On the basis of this we decided to move through the bridge and moor a few hundred yards to the south of it.

Todays Journey 12 miles, no locks in 4¼ hours