Sunday 11 May 2014

At last on the Shroppie

On Saturday after a good night on the old red stuff (only a glass or two of course) we pulled pins at 07.30 and left Tixll wide behind us and headed down The Staffordshire and Worcester canal.

shroppie 001                                                                    A bit of a windy day but we did have a lovely sunny start.

shroppie 026After a short while we came across yet another sunken plastic boat. It even has a Canal and River Trust enforcement notice on it, but I'm not sure how you would get aboard to read it.

shroppie 039                                                         Nearly all the locks in this area have these knitted flowers on them . We are not sure why.

shroppie 047                                                                           And there are one or two very leaky lock gates.

shroppie 049        After over 7 hours of cruising on Saturday in very blustery and sometimes wet conditions we picked up this mooring just after Boggs lock.

shroppie 054                                   On Sunday we had a bit of a lie in and didn't pull pins until 08.30. The lock at Gailey is just the other side of this bridge.

shroppie 057                                      This is how close the lock is to the bridge.It has to have angled beams to allow it to operate.

shroppie 059shroppie 064

shroppie 072  shroppie 065

                                                                      It was a good couple of days for boat names..

shroppie 061                                                           Not sure what this is about..But you do see some strange sights out on the cut.

shroppie 068                                    On Sunday morning we had a few heavy showers of rain, but that wasn't going to put us off cruising.

We later passed through a place called Coven, I did ask Carolyn if she would like to stop so she could go and visit some of her friends ………………    (OOPS!! AM I IN TROUBLE)

shroppie 078We soon arrived at Pendeford Rockin which is the old boatmen's name for a shallow and narrow cutting, and it certainly is narrow. There are a couple of passing places but i am glad we never met another boat coming towards us.

shroppie 081This is Autherley Junction where we come off the Staffs and Worcs canal and join the Shropshire Union Canal ,we have heard so many good things about the Shroppie we just couldn't wait to get here… Typical just as i turned and got my bow into the junction another boat appeared coming out of it. Funny how you can go for hours and never pass another boat then when you have an awkward manoeuvre to carry out or you are entering a bridge ole you meet someone coming the other way.

shroppie 082           This is the lock that separates the two canals. It is a stop lock and is only six inches deep. It was used to protect the two canals water supply.

shroppie 083Not long after coming onto the Shroppie we came across this lot. This is the view we get when we are passing through a fishing match. The Anglers wait until the last second before moving their poles out of the way. This lot were sort of friendly with nearly half of them saying hello or giving us some type of a grunt as we passed them.

We moored up just after 13.30 about a mile before Brewood. We are going to try and slow down a bit over the next week or two and have some shorter cruising days. After all we are not in a hurry to get anywhere..

                                                                Happy days

4 comments:

  1. Hi yoos two,best NB blog on the net,great pic's.Doin it for real

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  2. Hi Stan, Thanks for the kind comment. The Shroppie is certainly an interesting canal and living up to the good things we have been told about it. We still have to pinch ourselves occasionally to make sure it's really happening ...Best wishes to you both.

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  3. Gary you missed a trick at the junction as there is a huge STW on the side of the canal. You could of passed on all your knowledge!
    Take care............... M'Lord

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  4. Hello Lord B of Hill and Dale..saw it on the map, but after over a year of retirement I have forgotten everything I knew about Stw's. Good to hear from you and hope you are keeping well...ps. What a pleasure after all these years for Spurs finishing above Man U ...

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