Sunday 9th January: Wrenbury
I set off this morning at 10:30 for a fairly short run to
Wrenbury.
The initial part of the trip was fairly uneventful, just
farmland, you tend to not see so much wildlife during the winter months but as
another boat approaching got quite near I spotted a really beautiful brightly
coloured kingfisher just sitting on a branch posing, sadly I couldn’t risk
getting my camera because of the proximity of the other boat and of course the
kingfisher never moved, typical!
You do see a lot of swans but I think this one was lost;
Alton Towers is quite some distance from here.
The Baddiley locks were my first obstacle, three of these
and the first once was against me, so I worked through that and as I approached
the second one a boat came out of it so I was able to go straight in, then as I
left the second one a boat approached so I was able to leave the top gate open
for him and that also meant the third lock was in my favour so I was able to
nudge the gates open, all in all a nice bit of luck.
Not long after the locks my Pearson’s guide highlights a
sharp bend, but when I got there I did not see any reason for the highlight, it
was sharp-ish but fairly wide, maybe in the summer with lots of holiday boat
traffic it could prove a problem.
Lift bridge 19 just before Wrenbury was down.
The controls are on
the non-towpath side but this one was ok, there was a reasonable section of
bank to hop onto so I nudged into the bank and walked along the gunnel to hop off the bow taking my bow rope with me,
this type of bridge is opened by windlass (windy lock key thing) as against the
counterbalance weight type (pulling the counter balance beam down to get the
bridge up into the open position) I prefer the windlass type because you don’t
have to try to chain it in the up position, it just stays up until you wind it
back down, and luckily as I was opening it a boat approached ahead so I was
able to leave it up, hop back aboard, and go on my way leaving them to go
through and close it after.
 |
| Leaving it |
I moored up before the next lift bridge and went for a
stroll around the village, it’s only small, not much here, the usual two pubs
and a church and a well stocked Post Office cum general store, although like
most of these quiet places there is housing expansion out from the central
part, here’s a few pictures.
 |
| Cotton Arms Pub |
 |
| Dusty Miller pub |
 |
| A nice house |
 |
| and another |
 |
| St Margarets church |
 |
| Village stores cum Post Office |
 |
| Wrenbury Mill ABC boat hire and the next lift bridge on my route |
The boat in front of me is selling rope fenders and I need
an extension piece to my stern button which is shorter than the projecting
rudder,it is in fact already quite big being made up of two
separate parts but the rudder projects another two or three inches.
This helps to prevent damage to the rudder should you
reverse into a lock gate or anything else, it also prevents the rudder being
dislodged from its retaining cup, a bit of a nightmare if that happens
requiring two or three strong people and a big hammer to get it back in place,
so if the chap has what I need I may stay and fit it tomorrow otherwise I will
probaly move on.
Total travel today: 3 miles : 3 locks : 1 lift bridge
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I removed the thin one nearest the boat and replaced it with
the thicker new one.
Basically it is an enlarged area
cut into the surrounding field or whatever to allow you to put your bow into the ‘hole’ and
turn the boat using forward and reverse as necessary, it is pronounced like the
blowy stuff as the boatmen of old relied on the wind to move the boat around.
Tonights mooring taken from the side hatch for a change.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday 11th January
I had a chat with the fender maker and decided to buy a new
button to replace one of my existing ones, this is my current setup, it's short and too low catching the rudder occasionally
I then refixed the existing outer one, leaving me with this.
It now projects further than the rudder so should be much
better, from an aesthetic point of view it would have been nicer if it were a
slightly bigger diameter but the chap did not have any bigger ones.
It was a lot harder to do than I had thought, stretching out
over the crowded stern deck, you have the tiller, the mooring posts and the
seats all in the way, add to that the effect of gravity and trying to get the
shackles holding it together in the correct chain links by shifting it all up
one link at a time until you get it right, it was about four hours of hard
slog, with resulting sore fingers and back, but another job done and another
£50 lighter in the wallet.
No travel:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday 12th January
Having no internet combined with a very weak phone signal is
frustrating, so I had decided to move on to Whitchurch this morning, however,
when I woke it was raining so I thought it would be another day at Wrenbury.
Around 10 the rain cleared and it didn’t look too bad so I
thought I’d give it a go, the lift bridge ahead is electric which isn’t much
help (it just means you don’t have to physically wind it up) and has traffic
lights because the road crossing it is fairly busy, so I wasn’t looking forward
to holding up the traffic, although it does give you a feeling of power J. As I was about to set
off the fender-maker said he would walk ahead and operate the bridge for me
which was nice of him and it meant minimal work for me (just steer through the
gap) and less of a delay for the motorists.
It was very chilly and bright to begin with but dark clouds
around warning of rain at some point and I was happy to see that the next lift
bridge was open.
For those who have wondered what a winding hole is here is a
very nice example, Thomason’s Winding Hole.
They are not always as big and clear as this one and not
many have a name posted.
The first lock of the day was Marbury lock.
Another amusing (to me) boat name, but I think he should add
‘and a packet of crisps’
Moving from Cheshire back into Shropshire the next lock was
Quoisley lock, which appears just after a blind bend beneath the bridge
carrying the A49, a precautionary sounding of the horn even though I haven’t
seen any other boats moving today.
Next comes Willey Moor Lock with the very conveniently place
pub of the same name, I will assume Willey Moor was famous for something as my
Pearson’s only states that it is justifiably popular, and I have not internet
to research it.
Then on to Povey’s Lock which turned out to be the last one
for today, where I found a windlass on the spindle of one of the bottom gates,
this surprised me as I hadn’t passed anyone so it had either been there
overnight or a boat going up the lock with two people operating the gates must
have left it, anyway my first thought is always ‘I hope they had a spare’! Shortly
after with the sky looking decidedly like heavy rain approaching I decided not
to tackle the next 6 locks but moor up for today, it was a good call because
shortly after the rain came, heavy and persistent.
Total today: 5.5 miles : 4 Locks : 2 Lift bridges (open)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today: Wednesday 13th January
Well to say it was cold this morning would be about right,
the roof of the boat was sheet ice as it had rained last night, the ropes were
frozen solid and the cabin was ‘cool’.
Half an hour later with the boiler on and the fire roaring
my outlook brightened, it was still very cold so I left it until 11 before
setting off on the short but busy run to Whitchurch where I hoped I would get
an internet signal.
Just ahead was the first of the 6 Grindley Brook locks, 3
single locks followed by a staircase of 3 more raising me up 38ft 11inches.
It started well as I got to the first lock a boat was
descending so I helped them through and expected the ascent to be easy as all
the locks should now be in my favour.
The second lock had a fairly vicious bywash which I didn’t
allow enough for and I bashed to lock entrance wall a bit harder than is
comfortable.
The third lock was uneventful leaving the staircase for me
to tackle.
I tied up and went to have a look to make sure no-one was descending
and to be clearer on the layout.
Staircases are combined locks so instead of 3 separate pairs
of gates (in this instance) that would normally be needed there are only four
gates, 3 in pairs and one single, the middle lock in effect is formed by using
the top gates of the lowest lock as it’s bottom gates and the bottom gates of
the top lock as its top gate, if that makes sense!
Navigating them should be fairly easy, when going uphill you
start with the bottom lock empty and the upper locks full and when going
downhill you start with the top lock full and the lower locks empty.
When I looked all three locks were empty as expected because the earlier boat had come
through, so in order to speed my progress I made a mistake, I opened the
paddles to the top and middle locks to fill them, ok, that was fine, but then I
decided I had time to bring the boat into the bottom lock as the others were
filling, I didn’t have time, so what happened was the middle lock filled
and continued to be filled by the open paddles until it overflowed, I had to
jump off the boat as I saw the problem and run up and drop the paddles to the
middle lock, by now water was cascading over the gates and lock sides and
running down the paths, hmmm.... lesson learnt again, don’t rush and try to cut
corners to save time! Luckily no real harm done, I soon stopped the flow and
continued on through slightly embarrassed, luckily no one about to witness it.
It was then a quick stop on the service point to top up the
water tank and on to Whitchurch mooring just before Lift Bridge 31 on the
offside visitor moorings.
It was all rather busy so only mooring pictures today. But
as is evident by this catch-up post I have internet! Sorry it's a bit long.
Tonights mooring taken from the side hatch for a change.
Total today: 2miles : 6 locks
No comments:
Post a Comment