Top of the Town

Friday 11^th September 2020

Very conscious of the 27 locks ahead of us, we set off fairly early, about 8:15. Another consideration in my mind was a concern about availability of mooring in the centre of Birmingham – I didn’t want to arrive late and find that all the good spaces were taken, and have to moor somewhere insalubrious.

Within half a mile we started to travel through more built up areas, and soon came to the first of the Minworth locks. There are three of these, well spaced out, and really just a small worm-up for the rest of the day. Beyond the Minworth locks we were definitely passing through industrial areas, with factories in various states of dilapidation, pipe bridges and general grime. We came to a spot where a factory is actually built right over the canal, so that for several hundred yards you are running through a semi-tunnel made out of concrete pillars – there is open air out through the pillars on one side, but otherwise you are effectively underground.

Factory over the canal

Immediately after this we came to an electricity substation towering over us, with the biggest insulators and terminals I have ever seen. Now we were running alongside (and below) the M6, at Spaghetti Junction. Looking through the pillars below the motorway we could see Star City, an entertainment complex I have seen many times when driving past.

Spaghetti Junction

It may be Spaghetti Junction for motorists, but for a couple of hundred years before that this has been Salford Junction, the meeting of three canals. The Birmingham and Fazeley, which we were following, continues on towards the centre of the city. On our left, going south east, the Grand Union Canal starts from here. And to the right, going north west, is the Tame Valley branch of the Birmingham Canal Network (BCN). This looked narrow and little-travelled – many of the side branches of the BCN do not have many visitors, and are apparently often rather weed-choked and tricky to navigate. At some future time we will come down here and see if we can explore all the odd little back arms and loops, but for today we had a very specific objective, and we stuck to the main line.

Salford Junction below the M6

Loulie took the helm for a little while after the junction, and soon after, just past Cuckoo Bridge, she had a nasty shouting match with an unpleasant pair in a moored boat and dinghy, who seemed to feel that even tickover was too fast as we went past them.

We had now reached the bottom of the Aston flight, and started up. After the first three these locks are all very close together, and Loulie got out and worked them all, walking between them. She started to find that some of the locks we came to had their upper gates left open, which is a nuisance as she has to close them before starting to work the lock. It turned out that the boat ahead of us was another vlogger, called Robbie Cummings. He had two people helping him – one was going ahead working the locks, and the other was supposed to be following up. Sadly this bloke was also running a drone with which he was filming their progress, and he clearly could not spare the time from those duties to bother following canal etiquette. Loulie spoke to him, but it did not seem to have much effect. Fortunately we passed a number of boats coming the other way, and when that happened the locks were set in our favour.

On the Aston flight

Also more positive was a boat which was following us, one lock back. It seemed that this was a boat which had just been bought by a couple, and an experienced boater was helping them move it. He was working them into each lock and then leaving them to complete it while he came forward to help speed us on our way, by closing the gate behind me and allowing me simply to sail off. Without that help I was having to pull in and get off to close the gate, while Loulie went ahead to the next lock. Stuff like this makes a big difference when you are working up a long flight.

At the top of the Aston flight we came straight out at a T junction. To our left the Digbeth branch leads down six locks and two short tunnels to the Typhoo basin, and eventually links up with the Grand Union, coming down from Salford Junction. Again, next time we are here we will explore that alternative route. But today we were turning right, and along a pound of about half a mile to the bottom of the Farmers Bridge flight – thirteen locks which would take us to the end of our journey today. As we approached the bottom lock we saw Robbie Cummings moored on the towpath, so at least we would not be following him this time.

The Farmers Bridge locks are all close together, with very short pounds between them. Lock 12 (the second one we came to) is right below Snow Hill station, with huge concrete pillars and pools of water off to the side. Lock 9 is right underneath a towering office building. The whole flight feels as though it is in a deep canyon, with tall buildings rising on either side, and more coming into view straight ahead. We continued to have help from the boat behind us, and part way up the flight a couple of vlokkies appeared, which helped us on our way considerably. In the end we reached the top of the flight before three.

Loulie had asked one of the vlokkies about the best place to moor, and he had given her some advice. When we came out of the top lock we went ahead a few hundred yards then came out at a “roundabout” – Old Turn Junction. This whole area was completely unlike anything we had expected. Far from the seedy and run-down parts of Manchester which the Rochdale Canal passes through, this was the high-rent part of Birmingham. The canals are very wide, and the banks newly made, with stone sides and wide towpaths/footpaths, busy with shoppers, joggers and local residents. Large buildings overlook it – the Birmingham Arena, the Sea Life Centre and several new apartment blocks. The towpaths are lined with wine bars, restaurants and pubs – we could have moored outside Zizzi’s and had dinner there, if we had wanted to.

The roundabout where we had emerged was a small circular island in the centre of a wide area of water, with three canals heading off it, in addition to the B&F which had brought us out here. To our left was a stretch leading to Gas Street Basin, and beyond to the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. Straight ahead was the Old Turn itself – a short loop going ahead and then round to the right. And on the right was the beginning of the New Main Line of the BCN, which runs straight out of the city to the west. This was where we chose to moor, on the left hand side (there are towpaths on both banks), in front of some apartments and opposite the Arena. The neat stone banks were lined with rings, so we had no problem mooring, and there was plenty of space. It filled up a little later, but there was still loads of room in the various arms – my concerns earlier were entirely unfounded.

Bridge at Mail Box Turn

Birmingham & Worcs Canal going south

Local architecture

Gas Street Basin

Looking west towards Old Loop Turn

High end shopping

We took the dogs for a walk, and discovered one of the few downsides of this mooring – an almost complete absence of grass for the girls to tiddle on. Close to the boat the towpath was stone and tarmac, and further down there were just a few tiny scraps of grass behind an occasional tree. We walked over the junction and down past some flats, and eventually found enough green patches to allow them to relieve themselves.

After that I went on a longer walk, to get a few provisions and to scout for takeaways. I walked down past Gas Street Basin to Mail Box corner, where the canal turns ninety degrees right and heads off to the south. The “Mail Box” is a shopping mall – very high class, places like Gieves and Hawkes, Harvey Nicks and Emporio Armani. It also contains the offices of BBC Birmingham. I walked through there and down towards the Town Hall (a massive Victorian pile) and New Street Station, which is clad in an amazing sheath of curving reflective silver, more like a space ship than a railway station. Off in the distance I could see the Bullring and Selfridges, another bizarre curved silver building, this time covered in large hemispherical shapes.

Our plan was to have a Chinese takeaway, and Google Maps showed us Chinatown a mile or so away. We picked a restaurant and ordered on line, and I set off walking. I found it OK, but it was shuttered and under renovation – at that point I got a text message cancelling our online order. I was able to find another place close by and ordered, but on a busy Friday night I had to wait around for about 40 minutes before it was cooked. By the time I got back to the boat we were very ready to eat.

At bedtime we had the grass problem again – Bridget takes long enough at the best of times to do her last tiddle, and tonight I had to walk her up and down the towpath, over bridges and down side roads before she finally found a green spot that she liked.

TODAY: 6:45 HOURS. 8.0 MILES. 27 LOCKS.

Voyage: 50:40 HOURS. 87.2 MILES. 76 LOCKS.

Ready for the final push

Thursday 10^th September 2020

Today was all about positioning ourselves for tomorrow’s big push. The objective was to get up the Curdworth flight of eleven locks, and then find a suitable spot to moor. Apart from Curdworth there were no other locks to tackle, and we didn’t feel we needed to make a very early start. We took the dogs for a walk – Loulie wanted to show me the really nice route she had found the previous night, but sadly the woods were closed because there was shooting going on at the firing range. Instead we went along the canal, and back lower down near the River Tame. We met several nice dogs with their owners, and it was a pleasant way to start the day.

We started at around ten, and went through Hopwas, but fairly soon we stopped near the A5 so that I could take the bike and go shopping. We then pressed on, and arrived at Fazeley Junction. At Fazeley the Coventry Canal turns sharp left and briefly trends north east before turning south to its eventual destination (Coventry, by an amazing coincidence). It also links up with the Oxford and so eventually the whole of the south. However on this trip we ignored that option, and instead turned right, moving on to the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. This would take us the whole of the way to the centre of Birmingham, at Old Turn Junction, where it links with the Birmingham Canal Network.

Although we were on a different canal there was no obvious change – the various canalside items looked the same, and in particular those distinctive doors in the bridges were still there. It turns out that this was because the stretch of the Coventry that we had been on, from Fradley Junction to Fazeley, was not actually built by the Coventry Canal company at all. 250 years ago, when they had got the Act of Parliament authorising the route, the Coventry company were very slow to get organised. This was serious for the Trent and Mersey Canal and the Birmingham and Fazeley, who were going to be connected by the Coventry, and who were losing revenue as long as the link was delayed. So in the end they got together and built that section, effectively as an extension of the B&F up to Fradley. Eventually the Coventry got moving and continued their canal from Fazeley down to the other end.

Fazeley Junction

Not far south of Fazeley we came to a very odd looking bridge, at Drayton. It is known as the Turret Bridge, because it consists of two cylindrical towers with crenelations on the top and a spiral staircase inside, connected by a flat horizontal bridge span – it is very much pedestrian only. It was put in place by Drayton Manor, a local country house which is now a theme park, off to the west of the canal.

Turret Bridge

A couple of miles after that we came to the first of the eleven Curdworth locks. We needed to get to the top of these and find a mooring ready for tomorrow. The locks themselves were OK, but for some reason some of the pounds between them were very low, and Loulie had to navigate carefully up the centre. I stayed on the bank at those pounds, even where they were quite a distance, to avoid having to bring the boat in to the side where she threatened to ground. Locks 6 to 2 were close together, running alongside the M42, and before Lock 1 we stopped at a water point, in the shadow of the M6 Toll Road running on a bridge across the canal. All in all these locks took us longer than we expected, and it was getting fairly late.

After the top lock we soon came to the Curdworth Tunnel. To be honest, for someone used to Preston Brook and Harecastle this is barely worthy of the name tunnel at all, more like a very long bridge, with room for two boats to pass and a towpath running through – it is only about 50 metres overall. Immediately beyond the tunnel there was a mooring which we pulled into – we had been told that the top of the tunnel was the last “safe” mooring before the centre of the city.

However we discovered that there was zero mobile signal – not even enough for a phone call, much less any sort of broadband. So I took the bike and pedalled forward, looking for a spot with reasonable mooring and a worthwhile signal. It turned out that there were plenty of stretches where we could moor, and no sign of dereliction, dodgy surroundings or anything to give us any concern. In the end we stopped just beyond a pub called the Cuttle Bridge, alongside fields and with more opposite, and just short of a business park which meant excellent mobile signal strength. There was Armco to allow us to moor on clips, and the only slight downside was a bit of a shelf. A nice mooring, and much better than we had been led to expect.

TODAY: 8:30 HOURS. 11.2 MILES. 11 LOCKS.

Voyage: 43:55 HOURS. 79.2 MILES. 49 LOCKS.

Sent to Coventry

Wednesday 9^th September 2020

Today we were going to be going onto new waters again, as we planned to turn down the Coventry Canal from Fradley Junction, heading for Birmingham. Looking ahead, Friday was going to be a big day, 27 locks up into Birmingham. To put ourselves in position for that, on Thursday we would have to go up the eleven locks at Curdworth. So our plan was to take it fairly easy today – there were four locks to climb to Fradley, but after that we would be in a long single pound on the Coventry, and we planned to finish early.

We started at about 10:30, and the four locks were no problem. I had to wait as a boat came out of the third one, and I recognised the steersman – he is a solo boater who has a YouTube channel called Cruising the Cut. He was a TV journalist who gave up work to live on the boat, and he is a good vlogger, comfortable in front of the camera, and with a journalist's sense for how to put information across. I follow a number of vloggers, but he was the first I found, and I have got a good few useful tips from the channel. When I got through the lock and told Loulie about him she said that he had been filming, and had explained to her who he was. Sure enough she appeared on an episode on his channel, helping him through the lock, and I even got a mention for having the foresight to leave the previous lock gate open to let him in.

We ascended the final lock, and turned left onto the Coventry Canal. There is a small swing footbridge just beyond the junction, but this had been opened by a boat going in just ahead of us, and as there was a boat waiting to come through the other way we did not have to close it behind us.

The is a water point just past the bridge which I had been hoping to use, but there was already a boat there and another waiting, so we pressed on. The map had shown a marina with water point and diesel here, but I had made an error, and it was in fact on the T&M beyond the junction. So we carried on, but I was keen to get water, and a pumpout and diesel too if possible, before we went into Birmingham.

Bridge on the Coventry

Earlier in this trip we had explored new waters on the Trent and Mersey, but today we were on an entirely new canal. This is an “old” canal, built in the 18^th century, snaking through the countryside, by contrast to the canals built by Telford 50 years later, like the Shroppie – he used embankments and cuttings to make the route as straight and quick as possible. In this the Coventry is like the Trent & Mersey, but each canal has its own little peculiarities. We noticed that the bridges all had little windows in the brickwork, about three feet tall, covered with a wooden panel and a padlocked grating. We were unsure what these might be, but later we discovered that they are where they stored the stop planks which could be used to seal the canal in an emergency, if there was a breach, or if they wanted to drain a section for maintenance. On the canals around us these are kept out in the open, or under a little roof. Another oddity on this canal was a swan and cygnet which pursued us for quite a distance, paddling and splashing almost frantically to keep up with us. Maybe they had been fed something very nice from a boat looking like ours, we couldn’t see any other reason why they chose to pursue us particularly.

A mile or so from Fradley the map showed two possible places to get the services we needed. The first, at Streethay, was on a wharf on the main line, and when we got there we found a boat taking on diesel, oddly moored so that he stuck out and partly obstructed the channel. There were also a couple more boats which seemed to be waiting, so we pressed on. The map showed a marina only a short way further on, so we turned in to the entrance there – this is a much more modern place, built off the main line with an entrance under a bridge on the towpath. We sailed through to the wharf at the rear where the services were, and I made a very satisfying landing, turning the boat broadside on and letting the wind push me gently into place.

 We had made a good decision to come here and not queue at Streethay – we were able to get all we wanted in one spot – pumpout, diesel and water, and even dumped our bin bags in their skip. I was alittle concerned that the wind might give me problems getting off the lee shore, but a bit of work with the bow thrusters gave me the angle I needed and we sailed away in an elegant curve, and back out onto the canal.

Very soon we came to Huddlesford Junction. This is where the Lichfield canal took off to the west, to Lichfield and beyond, meeting up with the northern part of the Birmingham Canal Network. There are plans to restore this, and indeed there is an aqueduct in place to take it over the M6 toll, if it ever gets that far. However at present the canal only goes a few hundred yards west from the junction, and this section has been commandeered by a boat club for their moorings – you can’t enter the stub of the canal unless you are a member.

The canal went around the outskirts of the village of Whittington, a nice looking place with a lot of attractive canalside gardens. We then headed out into more open country, and started looking for moorings. Just after three we found a nice snug spot on a curve, just before a stretch which had fairly unattractive banks of solid stone. We moored up and I went for a run along the towpath, while Loulie took the dogs for a walk. She found a splendid wood across a bridge, part of an MoD firing range which is closed off when it is in use. As I was running back Loulie stopped me to help her rescue Minnie, who had gone down a slope and jumped into the river Tame, and could not get out. Happily I was able to pull her out without falling in myself, this time.

Dog walking near Hopwas

TODAY: 4:45 HOURS. 7.9 MILES. 4 LOCKS.

Voyage: 43:55 HOURS. 79.2 MILES. 49 LOCKS.

Retracing our Steps

Tuesday 8^th September 2020

We had a big day planned today, in terms of miles at least, always looking to put ourselves in the right place on Friday morning for the big climb up 27 locks into Birmingham. Having taken advice from several people on narrowboat forums, the consensus seemed to be Curdworth, which is very close to the south end of the M6 Toll – although I had never noticed the canal in all the times I have driven that way. Counting back this meant that we would need to be well down the Coventry on Wednesday night, which in turn would require us to make good progress back towards Fradley Junction by this evening. The challenge is that once past Burton-Upon-Trent there is a long stretch of very unattractive canal for mooring, running alongside the A38, followed by the stretch of the Trent between Wychnor and Alweras. Alweras itself was probably going to have little free space, from what we saw going through a few days ago, and that meant that we would have to rely on finding a mooring in the short stretch between the end of Alweras and Fradley Junction. Even that would mean a journey of at least 20 miles, which is quite a lot in a day, especially factoring in a fair number of locks.

Consequently we got up early, fed the dogs and started our journey by half eight. Our first task was the two big double locks – Swarkstone and Stenson, at both of which we were on our own. Although you need to beware of getting stuck on the cill, in other respects going down a lock is easier than going up – the rush of water into the lock when the paddles are opened on the way up produces much stronger undertows and currents, and it is very hard to hold the boat steady and avoid crashing into one gate or the other. When we got to Stenson Loulie elected to get out with the windlass, rather than be left to rattle about in the lock.

After that we pushed on through Willington and on towards Burton. We were conscious that the dogs would need exercise, so after Willington Loulie got out and took them for a mile or so along the towpath, which here is well away from the A38 which shadows us all the way along this stretch. I picked them up soon after the canal had crossed the river Dove – the aqueduct we were on is about 250 years old, but it is modern by comparison with the old road bridge alongside, which was built by monks many centuries before the canal arrived.

The old monk's bridge over the River Dove

We travelled past Burton, with a single lock near the centre, and towards the far side we moored. Loulie took the dogs for another walk, and I went about half a mile to a Morrisons which I had spotted on the map, to replenish our supplies of food and wine – I had a heavy burden which I just managed to carry back to the boat. We carried on – three more locks took us down to the stretch alongside the A38, and then Wychnor Lock saw us back on the Trent. It now seems really very small, compared to its width down below Sawley.

Alweras Lock took us back on the canal, with evening approaching. As we had expected there was nowhere to moor at all, even though we are now getting quite used to mooring close to other boats. So we carried on up Bagnall Lock at the top of the village, into the short stretch before Common Lock, which marks the start of Fradley Junction. There were a couple of boats moored along there, and though the bank looked a bit soft we investigated and found a perfectly reasonable mooring, on pins, and exactly where we had wanted to be ready for the next adventure towards Brum.

Mooring below Fradley Junction

Mabel on the towpath

TODAY: 9:45 HOURS. 20.2 MILES. 9 LOCKS.

Voyage: 48:55 HOURS. 91.5 MILES. 55 LOCKS.

End of the Line

Monday 7^th September 2020

Our plan for today was to go down to Shardlow and on to the Trent, then go to look at the Shardlow marina where Loulie is thinking of holding her 60^th birthday event. We would then come back up the canal and start our journey back towards Fradley Junction and eventually Birmingham. Before we set off we fed the dogs and then took them for another walk down the cycle track towards the Trent, so that I could see it.

We got under way at about 9:15, and within a mile we reached the first of three locks before we get into Shardlow. As with the ones yesterday these locks are large with sharp undertows, though the final one, just above Shardlow, is relatively shallow. Having passed that one we proceeded slowly through Shardlow itself. This is very much a canal village, and unlike Preston Brook at the other end, the distinctive buildings, especially warehouses, have been retained, in some cases being converted into houses or flats. One house, with a long lawn bordering the canal, had a miniature railway track curving around it – the trains must have been inside their shed as we could not see them.

Final milepost at Shardlow

Flood control gates and warning lights

At the end of the village we passed through a set of flood gates – normally open, as they were today, but there for protection if the river rises. After passing a marina with a lot of moored boats, we went under bridge 1, the end of a sequence which started at bridge 213 up near Dutton. Just beyond that we came to the final lock which would let us down to the Trent. In this lock we were joined by another boat, Daedalus, a nice looking 70-footer with a tug bow, owned by a couple who spend the year aboard, though they have a house down in Essex. Having another boat made the lock more comfortable, though it was still difficult, with one of the paddles not working. We let them go ahead of us out of the lock, then followed them out onto the river.

This is a very different proposition from the narrow water we saw first up at Burston. After following a channel out of the lock for a few hundred yards you come to Derwent Mouth, effectively a crossroads. On your right the Trent itself flows in, and on the left the river Derwent emerges – this is a fair size, though not navigable by canal craft. Straight ahead the combined river flows downstream, and we followed it. It is now a hundred yards or more across, and flowing quite swiftly. We went under a substantial pipe bridge, which supplies water to the city of Leicester, and then under the M1 motorway. Just after that the river swung away to the left over a large weir, and we kept straight ahead into Sawley.

Derwent Mouth - the Trent coming in from the right

Looking up the Trent

Derwent Mouth - the river Derwent on the left

Following Daedalus towards the pipe bridge

Sawley, with a large marina and other moorings, sits on what is effectively a short stretch of canal, with the Trent looping around it to the north. At the top, where we went in, there is a flood lock, which is left open at normal times, so the water is at the same level as the river. At the other end there is a lock, manned by lock keepers and worked by machinery, which lets you down again onto the river (whose level has dropped when it went over the weir).

Sawley

The river seemed even wider as we emerged, though maybe the channel is just more spread out. There was a plastic bottle stationary in the middle – it wasn’t obviously a buoy, but it was either stuck on a very shallow spot or moored to the bottom, and I spent some time deciding which side of it looked more like the main channel. Fortunately, if there was a wrong side I picked the right one. The river curved broadly to the left and then back to the right, and we came to the crossroads which would be the limit of our journey this time. 

The crossroads

Straight ahead the Trent continued downstream, trending north until it becomes tidal, and eventually meets the Ouse to form the Humber Estuary. Up that way you can link up with the Yorkshire canals, and eventually reach Leeds and the Leeds & Liverpool canal.

Mouth of the Erewash

Looking across to the Steamboat Inn on the Erewash

To the left is the mouth of the Erewash Canal, which runs about a dozen miles north, between Derby and Nottingham. There are proposals to open further lengths into the foothills of the Peak District, but this will always be a dead end, unless the Derby Canal which I mentioned in yesterday’s blog is restored.

The Trent continues, with the Grand Union opening to the right

On the right is the beginning of the Leicester Section of the Grand Union Canal. This runs a long way south, through the centre of Leicester, and eventually meets up with the main line of the Grand Union, which comes down from the centre of Birmingham.

All three of these routes offer a lot of interest, and we would hope to travel them some day, but for now this was as far as we were going. We turned in a wide arc, very easy in the open river, and headed back upstream. We passed a large boat on the way, not seagoing I guess but bigger than you would meet on a canal. We went back up the automated lock and out the flood gates to Derwent Mouth. At this point we had planned to turn up the Trent again to visit Shardlow marina, but we reckoned that it would take a couple of hours at least, and time was already getting on. So we headed back up the locks through Shardlow and beyond, and in the end we moored in the exact spot at Weston Cliffs that we had left this morning – though facing the opposite direction, of course.

We have now completed the “End Run” – top to bottom of the Trent and Mersey, and the main objective of this trip. But now we were thinking about the second mission, to visit the centre of Birmingham. I was carefully counting back from the jump-off spot we had been advised to use for the final day into Birmingham, to make sure that we would reach it in time.

TODAY: 8:00 HOURS. 14.2 MILES. 10 LOCKS.

Voyage: 39:10 HOURS. 71.3 MILES. 45 LOCKS.

Rude Awakening

Sunday 6^th September 2020

Willington is a nice enough village, a commuter spot for Derby with a station in the centre. But the inhabitants all seem to take an early Sunday walk along the canal, usually with their dogs, or talking loudly. So quite early on we abandoned any idea of a Sunday morning lie-in, and got up. Loulie took the dogs ahead along the canal for a walk, and I cycled back into Willington and went to the Co-op to get food for a couple of days.

 

We set off at about 10:30, and cruised in a fairly leisurely fashion to the first lock of the day, at Stenson. The locks from this point onwards are double width, and we shared this one with a boat belonging to a young couple, who had bought her cheaply to do up. Unfortunately the engine was very rough, and I was standing right beside the exhaust in a cloud of blue smoke.

 

They let us go first out of the lock, and they must have moored up somewhere because we never saw them again. We carried on to the next lock, Swarkstone, and stopped just short of the lock landing on a water point, where we filled up – though I think it is the slowest fill we have ever had, it took nearly an hour. Swarkstone is an interesting spot – just before the lock a short arm branches off to the north. It is filled with moored boats now, but this used to be the start of the Derby Canal, which wound its way up to the city and then turned east, eventually meeting up with the Erewash Canal near Long Eaton. It is abandoned now, but there are proposals to reopen it, which would make a very interesting alternative route.

 

We did the Swarkstone Lock alone, which wasn’t much fun – the big locks down at this end of the Trent and Mersey are quite rough with sharp undertows, and it is difficult to keep the boat from rattling around. After that was done we carried on for a mile or so, looking for a mooring – it was only mid afternoon but we had had a long day yesterday. We tried one spot, but there was a nasty shelf, so we carried on to a spot called Weston Cliffs, where the canal had been cut on a shelf, with a steep rise on our right, and a sharp drop behind the towpath to the left. It must have been spectacular when built, but now heavy woods disguise the steepness of the hills, especially above us, though we could hear a dog barking, apparently from high in the air.

Moored at Weston Cliffs

I went for a run, back along the towpath, 2.8 miles measured with my smart watch. Loulie took the dogs for a walk – she found a cycleway crossing the canal, that used to be a railway. It took her down to a bridge across the Trent, which is much bigger here.

The Trent near Weston Cliffs

Bridge over the Trent

TODAY: 5:00 HOURS. 7.0 MILES. 2 LOCKS.

Voyage: 31:10 HOURS. 57.1 MILES. 35 LOCKS.