Misty Morning and then sunshine.

From Willey Moor Lock Visitor Moorings to Audlem Wharf, a distance of 20 miles, 5¼ flg and 16 locks.

We were rather surprised when we got up to find that the canal was enveloped in very thick mist. We cast off and made our way very slowly down the canal and through Quoisley Lock No 11 and the A49 road bridge just below the lock

It was quite cool and water was dripping from the trees and the mist really dampened the sound so apart from the noise of our own diesel engine there wasn’t anything to be heard – even geese flying past made no sound.

But from time to time the mist would clear a bit and you’d see the blue sky above the mist so we were pretty sure it would turn into a nicer day once the sun burned the mist off.

We met a couple of boats on the move which surprised us given how quiet it had been other mornings and also given what the weather was like – but maybe they too were enjoying the experience and the views.

Luckily the mist was, on the whole, not too heavy that you couldn’t see anything so navigating wasn’t that bad, although it did make it hard, or rather harder, to work out if boats you could see in silhouette were moored or moving

From time to time the mist would clear and you could see the plants on the bank quite clearly – so I put the zoom lens on and snapped a few pictures at maximum zoom… I was quite pleased with the results.

 

The mist came back again just before Wrenbury and it really wasn’t fun navigating through the lift bridges.

Much to our disappointment  we didn’t hold a single car up at Wrenbury Lift Bridge No 20 and as we made our way past Wrenbury Visitor Moorings (East) there seemed to be little signs of life on most of the moored boats.

The mist slowly lifted as we made our way down to Hurleston Top Lock No 4  and by the time we’d reached the bottom it was actually quite nice so rather than turning right and heading back to the moorings we turned left and headed off towards Bremilows Bridge No 100 . The canal is wide enough before you reach the bridge that you can turn a 52 foot boat, which we did before backing up a bit, mooring up, and heading off to The Olde Barbridge Inn for a couple of well earned pints.

It was so tempting to stay there and make tomorrow a long day but we theorised that if we did that then it would be pissing down with rain tomorrow, and so we headed back to the boat and set off again.

Nantwich Visitor Moorings (North) were still pretty full with a lot of the same boats on them as there had been when we’d come past at the start of the holiday…. the whole 48 hour mooring thing here is a total joke.

After the slow crawl through Nantwich we made good time to Audlem where we moored up just by the Wharf and went into the Shroppie Fly for an end of cruise meal. The food was good but the pub was a little quiet so we walked up to the Lord Combermere and found that most of the village seemed to be in there doing a quiz.