We left our mooring at Horninglow Wharf in Burton on Trent early on Wednesday (19/05/2021) morning.
A heron watched our progress with bored indifference through the first lock at Dallow Lane.
We chugged on to Branston Lock which was beside a huge building site for a housing estate. We passed Marston’s Brewery with lorries with Hobgoblin and Marston’s Pedigree livery.
Vast Amazon warehouses and a huge Argos Distribution Centre were on our route and at one stage we had a stream of lorries on either side of us, one on a busy road and on the other side a queue of lorries leaving a gravel worksite. We went through the river section at Alrewas which was causing much consternation to other boats and 13 locks on this day, and at Common Lock we struggled to hold the boat against the wind as we waited to go in, assailed by a short violent hail storm.
We had lunch at Bagnall’s Lock and moved on to negotiate the 5 Fradley Junction locks, which are usually manned by volunteers but they were just packing up when we arrived. We moored up in our old spot after the last lock.
Vera was happy to sit outside attached to her new extended wire lead and mug passers-by.
Once moored we watched an episode of “The Pact” on BBC iPlayer and then Steve got the bicycle out of the cratch and cycled a couple of miles to the Co-op.
On the way back he passed The Laird, another long-term hire narrowboat from the same stable as us. We tracked down the crew, Estelle and Norman, in the Swan Public House and joined them to exchange notes on our experience. We sat inside the pub but by the front door which had to be kept open thanks to COVID-19 restriction. Everard’s Tiger beer and wine made for a jovial evening and we returned to the boat at 22:30 and watched “Innocent” Series 2 on ITVhub before retiring.
At 07:00 on Thursday (20/05/2021) Steve cycled down to the C&RT shower block while Hilary and Vera explored the local woods. We set off at 08:00 to get as far as we could before the forecast rain fell. We went through Wood End Lock and through Handsacre and Armitage with narrows (narrow one-way channels).
The rain started as Vera and Steve got off to walk along the towpath at Trent Aqueduct at 11:00 and they walked alongside the boat down to the lunchtime mooring at Bridge 70 in Great Haywood to dry out and warm up. Vera had her first dip in the canal and was very wet.
At Haywood Junction we swung a left into the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal, signposted to Wolverhampton and moored up at Tixall Wide. It was raining! We watched 2 more episodes of The Pact on iPlayer with the heating on.
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