Wednesday was due to be
another day of rain but with bright spells during the morning, so we set off from
Ansty at 7 o’clock (early for us).
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Leaving Ansty on Wednesday
morning – weather a bit different to when we moored up on Tuesday
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It was only a few miles to
the end of the Oxford canal at Hawkesbury and as it was quiet, boat-wise, when we arrived we
stopped in the stop lock and got rid of recycling and rubbish at the boaters’
facilities. The gated compound is not padlocked, it is right next to the Greyhound pub and therefore very easy
for the public to access. The bins were
overflowing (apart from the recycling bins) and a lot of the rubbish looked
like household waste, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this facility is on CRT’s
list of potential sites to close. I will be getting in touch with CRT about the possibility of padlocking the entrance gate to the bin compound.
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Waiting in the stop lock whilst we disposed of our rubbish and recycling
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Karen drove through the
junction for her first time and made a perfect 180 degree turn without having
to use any reverse or hitting the sides 😊
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Buddy waiting whilst Karen
brought the boat from the Oxford canal on the left, under the bridge and
continued turning 180 degrees, onto the Coventry canal
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| Now on the Coventry canal – in an old stop lock by the engine house that used to house a steam driven pump |
I keep finding that I’m
including pictures and writing about places we’ve been to before but then having
to stop myself and remember that I only need to write about new experiences or
places (as everything is stored in the blog entries for previous visits).
It’s over two years since we were last heading this way but we both
still remember things that happened, good places to moor for lunch and places
to avoid etc.
At 9 o’clock we moored up
outside Bedworth where we knew there was a short stretch of Armco and went for
a walk into Bulkington, a place we haven’t been to before. It seemed to be a fairly modern village and
we found nothing of note to report but at least we had a walk even if we didn’t
take any pictures 😉
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Sign on the Bedworth road
bridge over the canal at Bulkington
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Just after setting off
again we passed a boatyard at Bedworth that always tickles us; the residents
all seem to be into life sized effigies and they line the banks outside their
boats.
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Part of the yard is a bit
like a good old-fashioned breakers yard.
The sort we used to go to when we were young to take out starter motors
from Ford Anglias etc. Health & Safety
wouldn’t allow that these days of course ☹
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We passed several families
of mallards and realised we had only seen three families so far this year, before today:
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I mentioned yesterday that
we saw a water vole. Well, one stretch
has had these pieces of coir matting installed with retaining stakes. They are there to help the water voles get up
onto the bank on sections where the sides are either concrete or Armco.
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When we arrived at Marston
junction (where the Ashby canal meets the Coventry canal) it seemed there were
boats going in all directions. As we
were just going straight on we went through the other boats to get out of their
way whilst they were waiting to either turn off or turn around.
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Boat waiting to come out
of the end of the Ashby canal
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Soon after midday the
skies went black and the rain started so we decided to moor up for lunch. Fortunately, we had just put on our wet
weather gear so were prepared when the rain became torrential whilst we moored.
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Karen togged up before the
dark clouds burst
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Our lunchtime mooring after
the rain stopped
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The next place we went
through was Hartshill which has a picturesque (to me anyway) old boat yard
still used by CRT. When we’ve been in
this area before we’ve had many walks around the abandoned granite quarries and collieries,
but we didn’t stop today even though the visitor moorings were strangely empty.
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Boatyard at Hartshill
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Our aim for the day was to
get to Atherstone where we could top up with food and drink as the next decent
supermarket place will be at Rugeley which is a good few days away. We would go down five of the 11 locks on the
Atherstone flight where there are plenty of moorings and then walk into town.
The sun was out occasionally
but as it was so windy there were very few butterflies around. A male orange tip landed on a pot of pansies in front of me as I
was driving but the wind wouldn’t let him open his wings fully:
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Another shot showing the
camouflaged underside as well as the bright upperside
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When we passed the
visitor moorings at the top of the Atherstone flight they were completely
empty. Usually it is really busy and the
last time we came it was full, so we had to go down five locks before we could
moor up. It was the last thing we wanted
that day as we had had a long cruise and it was beginning to get dark and cold.
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Empty visitor moorings at
the top of Atherstone
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This time we were carrying on down five locks to the visitor moorings at the half way point. There were three boats in
front of us at the top lock with none coming up so it was a slow journey down.
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| Karen back in the swing of narrow locking |
Ironically, when we reached the visitor moorings between locks 5 and 6
they were nearly full!
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We’re the last boat in the
far distance just before the next lock
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We walked into town to get
the shopping and then stayed in for the rest of the day. Another busy day for us - 13 miles and 6
locks 😊 We
will now stay on the Coventry canal until we hit the Birmingham & Fazeley
canal at Fazeley junction, probably on Thursday.
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This is the route we have
travelled since we left on Monday
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To finish, here are a
couple of shots of the scenic Coventry canal from our cruise today:
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