Kingswood Junction

Today's Canal - Stratford

The forecast predicted a grey day throughout with rain from lunchtime onwards. In reality the first part was true but light drizzle was with us from the off! Not great for photos.

Our first stop was only a short distance away - Wedges Bakery where we have been several times before, it has a good reputation on the area. As it is only 100m from the canal we did not bother tying up and Mike held the boat on the centre line whilst Christine popped up there. She brought back some delicious cakes  but was a tad disappointed with their very limited range of bread itself .

Having discovered that there is still a Co-Op in Hockley Heath (the building to the left of the pub) we then found that we really did not need anything!

There are two nursery fields of trees before the locks, a little apart. We checked to see how they compared with the last photo of them that we put in a blog but either they are very slow growing, or just the opposite and have been harvested once in the two intervening years!

Two lift bridges to negotiate. As always, the first is much easier than the second. In today's dismal light, this first one looked rather stark, almost gallows-like. As we came to the second there was a single hander just arriving from the opposite direction so we waved him through. he asked how to operate such a bridge as a single hander - he had never encountered one before, having picked up the boat at Whilton Marine! Hopefully he figured out a way when he reached the next bridge. (One of our suggestions was to wait until another boat arrived!)

At the top of the locks we met up with a boater moored just a little before who happily gave us some very useful help down the first four locks. Then we were on our own. Only when we were mooring up for late lunch did we see three volunteer lockies!

The lock cottage beside Lock 13 (with a small shop, selling ice creams in the summer!) looks quite strange end on. It is as if it was originally expecting to be something much bigger.

There is only one place to stop in the main flight, just below Lock 14 and we were rather glad to make use of it! These locks are rather heavy to work and so, after the first four, Christine did the steering bit ended up rather cold. 

We set off once more and after a couple of locks three different volunteers arrived and helped us down the remainder. For one volunteer this was his very first session and was already most enthusiastic. He retired early just as COVID lockdown started and had been looking hard for something to do - he enjoys being outside and meeting people, even in the rain.

The the basin we pulled onto the service point - the water pressure here is notoriously low and it took some time before our tank declared itself full. Meanwhile Christine had noticed that there was room on the visitor mooring just around the corner - which we took advantage of once we were able to move on again.

5.0 Miles - 19 Locks