Woodend Lock

 

There were several boat on the move well before we were ready to set off this morning a little after 10am. It had been some time since a boat went passes so I was a but surprised to see one waiting to enter Colwich lock when we arrived, not only that but there were also 2 waiting below to come up. We met boats steadily all the way to Rugeley so I wouldn’t be surprised if the queue was about 5 for most of the morning. There were more mooring spaces in Rugeley than I expected to see with the number of boats moored before the town.
CRT have really excelled themselves with this new notice at Armitage, requiring life jackets and Light for Armitage tunnel. Although its called Armitage Tunnel it hasn’t been a tunnel for many years, its nothing more than a narrow cutting. I wonder if they have put a similar one up at Fenny Compton tunnel?

By now we had caught up with a slower boat so I just tagged behind through the narrows. We slowly made our way to Handsacre where again it was nose to tail moorings. A little further on we passed a boat trading on the towpath, the sales assistant looks like they could do with a good meal.

We also saw a Narrowboat with a small battery powered trolling motor attached to its rudder, not sure how well that would move it along.

• Our plan was to moor above Woodend lock as its normally nice and quiet there but today it was quite full, it looks as if some of the longterm moorers have moved across as they have been evicted from their paid for moorings by HS2ut we found a space and bashed a couple of pins in.

Todays Journey

11 miles, 1 lock in 4¼ hours