Wreckin

We pulled pins on Wednesday  morning at 08.15 and headed out on The Shropshire canal from Gnosall. Just after leaving Gnosall the famous shropshire landmark of The Wreckin comes into view. It is a hill that is 1335 feet high and can be seen for many miles as you travel along the embankments of the Shroppie.
       Another famous sight on this canal is this telegraph pole fixed into the arch on this bridge

This is the Cadbury factory at Shebdon Wharf . This is where they process the milk into raw chocolate then they send it to Bournville. It used to be sent by canal but that stopped in 1961.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 
                                           Another good boat name and a very good body.

We moored at midday opposite The Wharf Tavern and decided to stay here for the rest of the day and it then wasn’t long before we got busy polishing Inca.We have always done it by hand but this time used the electric polisher, and what a difference it made. It was a lot quicker and it was a much better finish. As you can see Molly and Hamish were not a lot of help.

                                                    Ooops!!!!!    .  At least he hit the bridge and not Inca

     Being moored opposite a pub meant that her ladyship had to drag me out for dinner. A bit pricey but very good food.

        Thursday morning and we pulled pins at 08.35 and were soon in yet another narrow cutting.

                                                       And it got deeper and deeper.

                                                       In deep cuttings you get tall bridges.

  Carolyn couldn’t resist taking this photo.. Its not what it looks like, I am actually emptying the toilet cassette at Tyrley services.

                                                               Tyrley top lock.

  On the fourth lock down we encountered the strongest side wash ever.It pushed us over into the trees and I had to use full throttle to get us back on course.

 Our mooring for Thursday night….yes on top of this bridge. We are now in Market Drayton and picked up this high mooring.
We may spend a day or two here as Carolyn says she wants to have a look around the town (Buying things in shops) but the weather is hot and it’s a good mooring so we are happy here. I am not sure how this post will come out as my laptop has gone titsup. Norton has shut down and stopped me getting on line. I have tried everything ,it says to download the uninstall from their web site but as I cant get online I cant do that. I then tried to manually uninstall it but got half way through and it wouldn’t let me continue,  so until I sort it out I am on Carolyn's laptop..

                                                           Happy Days

No zull

 

After a good nights sleep on Sunday night we pulled pins at 09.30 0n Monday morning and came upon the biggest fall out we have ever seen on our travels.

Just after bridge 8 on the Shropshire Union canal it goes very narrow and the boat in front of us entered the bridge ole and as it always happens there was a boat coming the other way. The approaching boat had a lady skipper and she absolutely flipped at the boat in front of us for entering the narrows while she was in them. He flipped back at her and all hell broke loose. The language they used was worse than mine , so that tells you how bad it was.

                     Carolyn thought it was funny, but she did go onto the bow to make sure no other boats were in the narrows as we entered them.

Bridge 10 is a very ornate balustrade bridge. When the canals were built rich landowners demanded that if the canals were going to cross their land they wanted only the best looking bridges that could be built.

                                                The bridge also comes in very handy as somewhere to shelter when its raining.

After an hour of cruising we arrived in Brewood and after mooring we headed off in to the village to pick up a few supplies. It has everything you need from a Spar shop ,Co-op,  Bakers , Butchers and several pubs.

               No visit to a Town or village is complete without a visit to the local church and an opportunity for Carolyn to search for my final resting place.

                                                                                            Our mooring in a cutting for the night at Brewood.

                             On Tuesday we pulled pins at 08.30 and passed what has to be the smallest narrow boat we have ever seen.

                                                                             Some more good boat names.

This is how we expected the Shroppie to be except for having the worse towpaths we have ever seen. Carolyn usually likes to walk Molly and Hamish for an hour or two but there was no chance of that along here.

                                                                    One of the many cuttings on The Shroppie.

                                                                          The narrow approach to Cowley Tunnel

                                                       And entering the Tunnel which is carved out of solid rock.

                              From the northern portal,  Cowley Tunnel is only 81 yards long but there is something very special about passing through it.

                                                            We picked up this mooring at 13.30 on the far side of Gnosall (pronounced No zull)

The afternoon was spent cleaning the roof on Inca. After a winter of burning coal and wood it was in a bit of a state, but after a few hours of hard scrubbing it cleaned up a treat. We rounded off the day with a walk along the the disused Stafford-Shrewsbury railway line.

                                                        Happy Days

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.

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

After 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.

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

                                                                           And there are one or two very leaky lock gates.

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

                                   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.

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

 

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

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

                                    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)

We 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.

This 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.

           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.

Not 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

Wild Tixall wide

We have had a good mixture of weather here at Tixall wide from high winds and rain to glorious sunshine. But it doesn't really mater as the view from our window is superb. It is such a difference to look out over a large expanse of water .The water is also very clear and it makes a change to be able to see more than a couple of inches down as most canals are very murky mostly due to them being shallow and a lot of boat movement.
                                                                                                    A rainy Tixall wide on Thursday

                                                                                          But it cleared later to give a lovely evening.

There is always something that needs doing on a boat and it doesn't take long before its engine service time again. Our Beta 43hp engine needs to be serviced every 250 hours. When we bought Inca it was 3 years old and had done 270 hours. We are now nearly up to 1300 hours and this is the fourth service we have carried out in just over a year. And don't i struggle to get down in the engine ole. For some reason I'm not as nimble and flexible as i used to be.Must be an age thing…

                               The most important tools to carry out this service is a syringe and a drinking straw from McDonalds.

We have a very good Volvo stern gland on Inca and all it requires is a small amount of grease once a year. And the easiest way to grease it is to fill up a McDonalds straw with grease from a syringe then squeeze the end of the straw so it passes between the shaft and the seal. The seal has never let a single drop of water pass through it in to the bilge.

               That's better, Oil and filter replaced , new air cleaner and a new fuel filter plus all cables oiled and greased and fan belts adjusted.

On Friday afternoon we had a walk in to the farm shop at Haywood Junction and got caught in a few heavy showers ,good job there are plenty of bridges to shelter under. At the farm shop we bought a lovely punnet of strawberries. We had intended to have them as a dessert with tonight's dinner but they looked so good we eat them on the way back to Inca.


On Friday we were very happy to meet up with Jacquie from Nb Like Ducks 2 Water. We have followed her blog for a long time. We are both heading towards Llangollen so hopefully we should meet up again.
We plan to move in the morning (Saturday) .We are now on the Staffs and Worcs canal and this is a new canal to us. There is something exciting about not knowing what is around the next corner. As long as we don't drink too much of the red stuff tonight it should be an early start in the morning…….
                                                                 Happy Days