We left at 10 this morning, although the sun ws out the day started quite cool with the clear early morning sky. Yesterday evening I was sitting with the doors open and the noise of a Chinook helicopter going over, looking back at the lock things were so still giving lovely reflections.
As I was out with the camera I also took one of the grass at these moorings, better than my lawn.
A boat had been passed earlier,it was the one that helped up with the locks yesterday so we knew the locks would probably be against us and they were. We didn’t meet a boat until Stewponey Lock where we caught up with the boat ahead. On the way on the off side was a garden full of wild ducks and one Guiney fowl, not seen one in a long time. They are noisy, ugly birds in my opinion, but they taste good
Just below Hyde Lock someone has made a little raft with a little picnic table on it, I don’t know what they expect to feed on it as its a bit small for ducks.
Beside the lock on the off side is a company boundary marker against the lock cottage wall, it seemed a strange place for it as I would have expected the cottage to have been built on the company land, maybe it only includes the strip that the canal act applied to?
Above the lock is this memorial to someone's dad, always sad to see and makes me wonder what is behind it, did he die there, or was he just a lover of the waterways, who knows?
It wasn’t long before I was misbehaving again, no light, no lifejacket, whatever next.
I have been under bigger bridges than this all 25 yards of it, does it really need a sign, is anyone really going to put their fire out in winter and as for who has right of way????
The buildings beside Stewponey look well cared for including the glass fronted building used by CRT, I am not so sure about the toll building with the coloured squares over the door and windows.
The trouble the canal builders and the detail they went to building this canal and others of course is quite amazing, just look at this stop plank grove at the head of the lock all cast in iron and bedded fully into the brick work, not like two strips of angle iron used today.
We carried on past the off side long term moorings, I don’t know haw long you need to be moored for for a tree this size to grow in your rear fender.
At Stourton Junction we turned right and there on the lock landing was Robbi Cumming with his head down the weed hatch and we arrived before he had walked back and closed the gates, I think that is one of the film crew with him.
A nice run up the locks, all empty and it was nice to see a roller looking in good condition below lock 3, lots have rotted away and just the top and bottom irons remain.
Sharing one of the locks with us was this large toad, I hope he made it ok as he moved round by the heel of the lock just after I took this.
At lock 4 there was a boat waiting to come down, so that worked well as all the locks were with us and now they are all with them. We carried on in the sunshine to moor for the night against a short straight length of piling at Bells Mill. This is the view from the porthole, at the top right you can see one of our spiders, we have one in each porthole as well as a few others hidden away.
Today’s Journey
4½ miles, 7 locks in 3 hours
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