Left at 11:30
arrived at 15:20.
We had a slightly
disturbed night, we hadn’t a proper signal at all on the phone but got a
voicemail from Matt at 4 o’clock, ring you today son if that’s possible. Did a bit
of washing (Derek’s boating trousers and crinkly shirt). We are going to visit Yew Tree Farm, its a
converted set of stables with produce shops and artisan craft workers etc. it doesn’t open until 10.After that we are
planning on setting off to moor at the bottom of Wilmcote Locks just outside of
Stratford. We had a walk into the
village and saw some lovely buildings, a manor house with the river running
through the garden toppling over quite a few waterfalls, a chapel and a caravan
site!!! At Yew Tree we had a coffee and
toasted teacake (second breakfast) sat in the courtyard of the Farm waiting for
the shops to open and a mooch round the shops there. There was a lovely little craft cabin and I
topped up my stock of bits and bobs for my sewing on the boat. We got back to the boat at 11 15 and were on
our way for 11 30. We went over a little aqueduct which was at the side of the
office for the Anglo Welsh hire company, it looked over the road and into the
houses but it was only quite small so not too scary, it was starting to be very
windy by now and threatening rain.
Coming along the water we met a couple of hire NBs weaving there way
very slowly through the bridge holes.
After the 1st lock called Odd lock, we entered the Edstone
Aquaduct, it was very scary. I took a
few photos and got back in the cratch, we were bumping about as its even
windier travelling through a metal channel 28ft in the air and 475ft
long!!! 2 cyclists took our photo and
cycled by on the towpath, on the left hand side of the boat, which had a metal
bridge along it, the other side is just a metal lip. It was chucking it down by now so I decided
to make lunch. Took Derek his lunch and he said that there was a tractor parade
below us on the aqueduct, all the tractor drivers pipped and waved at him and a
trailer full of people being towed by a tractor, took our photo and waved
enthusiastically. I’m sure we looked quite good as the boat is pretty and looks
very shiny when she’s wet, fame at last ???
This is a pleasant piece of canal, the sides are very green with yellow
flag Irises and dog roses growing along it.
We passed a boat called Float Aboat – meditative holidays afloat? well
it takes all sorts. We passed Wilmcote,
the moorings before the flight of 10 locks, there were a couple of beautiful
properties on the right hand side with gardens down to the canal and a space for a narrowboat to be
moored. As we got to the locks you could see the other locks in front of you. There were lots of boats coming up, so we
started the system of 1 up and us down.
We met lots of different groups of people. A family with mum, dad, gran, granddad and 2
kids, they had had a hire boat for a long weekend. It was quite funny as at first dad, granddad,
grandma and kids were doing the paddles (they had come from Stratford so they
had done quite a few, I guess) mum was driving.
As they left the lock they all got on, made mum get off and sent her on
to do the next one! I think they were
ready for home, they had to get the boat back for this evening. There was a boat full of young women, they
did the lock for us and let me have a ride.
A large hire boat was full of men on a stag weekend, they were quite
good at the lock despite the fact they were partaking of the amber nectar. The maddest set were a group of 6 or so young
men and a couple of young women. They
were coming up from the last lock of this batch of three and as I put our boat
in the lock and looked down towards them, they had opened the bottom gate, let
the boat in but dashed up and started to open the ground paddles to fill the
lock forgetting to shut the gate. I
shouted to them to shut the gate, they did, put down the ground paddle but
forgot to shut the gate paddle. I waved to and pointed out their mistake, they
put it down and finally the boat started to come up. What a performance, they
were running round like headless chickens but at least we could laugh with them
and no one got angry. We arrived at the
bottom of the locks at our chosen mooring for 3:20 moored up and got set for
the evening, we had tele but unfortunately no internet. Whilst sitting with a well earned cuppa the
heavens opened and we were both pleased that we had finished for the day.
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