With strong winds and rain
expected for most of the week I decided to set off to Stoke Prior early on
Monday morning. There’s a water point
there and it’s easy for Karen to park – ideal if we’re going to be stuck for a
while.
It wasn’t raining when we
set out but the wind was up but fortunately I didn’t have any problems getting
into or leaving the locks. We had the
remaining five locks of the Astwood flight to go up and then a long straight
before reaching Stoke Prior.
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Buddy waiting for the boat
to rise at the first lock
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One of the locks didn’t
have a lock landing so I had to leave the boat in the previous lock and walk up
to get it set. Another lock only had one
landing bollard and that always makes it a bit trickier to tie up the boat.
Approaching the fourth
lock with only one mooring bollard
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Tied up whilst getting the
lock set
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As we were running the
engine I got the week’s washing done as we cruised. The wind had strengthened by the time we
reached the top and I decided to pull up for lunch. It was a bit tricky as it was quite an
exposed spot but I managed not to lose the boat. There was a boat casting off in front and they were taken by the wind leaving
one of the crew on the bank.
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Moored for lunch
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After lunch I carried on
to the water point which is opposite the pub we went to with Judith and
Nigel on Sunday.
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Our mooring for the next few days
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We will probably stay here
for a while. It’s not the best of
locations but we’re on mooring rings which is the best option when strong winds
are forecast.
We didn’t have much of a
walk in the afternoon as it wasn’t very pleasant and I think Buddy was pleased
to get back onto the boat out of the wet.
It felt really chilly and I also had lots of washing to dry, so I lit a
fire. If the washing dries inside the
boat without a fire then it can get very damp inside, so with no prospect of
hanging it outside because of the rain, a fire was the perfect result. As it was, Karen and I were both glad it was
lit as it certainly was a cooler evening than of late.
Looking back at last year’s
blog entries for June I noticed we had a fire at about the same time and a
second one in the middle of June!
We are moored at Stoke
Prior which came into existence because of the large and rich salt deposits discovered
just over 200 years ago. Many of the
salt extraction sites in the country were started by the Romans but they seemed
to have missed this one.
This information board
adds a bit of recent history and I’ll expect I’ll have an explore over the next
couple of days.
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Information sign outside
the Boat and Railway pub
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