Despite being moored opposite the long term moorings (a couple of boats had had their engines running into the mid/late evening) it was a very quiet night.
We decided to make an earlish start just in case there was a long queue at the lock, so having pulled up our mooring pins we chugged past the visitor moorings which were probably about 60% full – so we could have moored there but our alternative moorings were as good.
There was no queue at the lock and we were able to cruise straight in. As we were closing the gates a small fibre glass bucket hurtled up the canal at quite some speed, I’m not sure where they thought they were going, but it wasn’t in the lock with us.
It was quite pleasant to work through the lock without having other boaters waiting and actually doing it in the dry with the sun shining.
I’ve always found the shallow cutting through Lapley Wood very picturesque – I think its probably my “favourite” cutting on the canal. The light filters through the trees in a different way to the other cuttings and it adds a lot of depth and character to the banks which makes it an interesting place to steer through.
Again there seemed to be little other traffic moving and so we made our solitary way over the A5 (which also seemed remarkably quiet) and along the embankment towards Brewood.
Brewood is one of those places where the long linear moorings announce the village quite a time before you get there. It was as we chugged slowly past these boats that the fibre glass bucket appeared behind us and proceded to turn round to moor.
As we came through the cutting a hireboat decided that the best time to cast off is right in front of another boat… not a good idea at the best of times but when your stern is stuck on the bottom its certainly foolish.
As we wanted an easy weekend we decided to turn round in the winding hole by bridge 3. The winding hole would seem to be huge and it looks like you could do a U-turn in it… Ha ha ha!. Don’t try it. The canal by the towpath is silted up so your back end snags as you start to turn and the rest of the winding hole is rather shallow which leads to rather a lot of rather smelly mud being stirred up.
We decided that we would head back to Wheaton Aston for lunch and as it was only mid morning this seemed perfectly sensible. Just after we had winded a boat came through bridge 3 and as we approached Brewood it slowly gained on it.
We slowed down for the moorings and held back for a Viking Afloat boat which cast off ahead of us but was heading into Countrywide Cruisers. As we passed the Viking Alfoat boat I was asked if I was Nick or Steve !
The boat behind us was now almost on top of us so I waited until a gap in the moored boats and pulled over and waved them past. The person on the boat claimed that they weren’t pressuring me but that they couldn’t go any slower due to their tickover. Frankly if that was the slowest speed I’d hate to be the boat at the front of any gap he tried to pull into! If people insist on putting high revving modern engines in their boats then they need to look very carefully at the gearbox ratio and the prop size/pitch.
We made our way back to Wheaton Aston and only had to wait a couple of minutes for the lock. We stopped right at the top end of the visitor moorings for lunch.
After lunch we decided to feed the boat so it was off to the Garage for 111 litres of fuel. The tanks are now brim full and it should keep us going for a bit!
After the fun of the fast boat we then got stuck behind a slow boat. I had to keep dropping into neutral to stop us running into them. Their engine seemed to be running quite fast and was smoking but there seemed to be almost no power. The boat kept wobbling all over the canal and they seemed quite unaware of us being there – despite looking at us several times. I eventually got past them at High Onn wharft and winding hole where they pulled in to pick up some people. We kept an eye on them after we had gone past. By the time we reached the next bridge (about a third of a mile) they still hadn’t managed to turn round.
We stopped for the night in the cutting by Cowley Tunnel. There were a couple of other boats there but apart from the people messing round on their bikes in the woods we could have been miles away from civilisation.
Supper was some 21 day aged steak washed down with a couple bottles of Lindauer Brut.