Tilstock Park

 Today's Canal : Llangollen

It had rained heavily overnight but reduced to a mere drizzle by the time we made our first mugs of tea. However, the forecast gave a high probability of showers throughout the day - they were right!

Only a short distance before we passed under a former railway bridge. This once carried on of three lines into Whitchurch, passing around the north of the town to join the only remaining service.

Beyond, is Lane Croft Wharf, the bottom of the Grindley Brook locks. After ascending one of the three singleton locks, Christine popped to a nearby petrol station that also advertises food stores. We forgot to buy some new potatoes for our salad tonight and she returned with a box of very new local ones.\

At the second lock we could see the heavily pollarded tree that caused some comment a couple of years ago when it was done. In this photo it is a bit disguised by the large silo behind it.

However, from the other side a better view and we wonder whether it might have been overdone as there seems to have be no new sprouting.

Just below the staircase we noted that a sign warned that there were no lock keepers on duty today - if busy then 'do-it-yourself' can easily lead to lock-rage if a boat fails to honour the taking turns principle. We had to wait for one that had just started down but at that stage no more were waiting so no need to negotiate.

When it was our turn there were a couple of other boats waiting (one at the top and the other at the bottom) that were quite new to staircases - one of them was very new to canals and from Wrenbury and so only done four standard locks. We engaged in quite a bit of instruction! 

At the top, the lockies hut was very firmly closed - buy we already knew that anyway. In fact, provided that the instructions are read carefully, a staircase is not difficult but some of the stages are bit counter intuitive. In this case the intermediate gates also lek quite a bit and so there is often insufficient water in the middle lock to fill the bottom one enough to allow deeper boats to pass over the sill.      

At the top we moored on one of the water points as we needed to do a 'full service'. Afterwards we only needed to move a couple of boat length onwards to the visitor mooring where we had our lunch.

Just after we set off again a very heavy rainstorm arrived - fortunately no boats came by as we sheltered under a bridge during the worst of it.

Our first lift bridge of the day came at Whitchurch Junction - the arm to the left and beyond the bridge.

Yet another ABC hire base in after the nearby winding hole - several boats were in the process of being handed over to the latest round of hirers - many now doubt full of anticipation! It did seem that not available boats were due out today - they were very obviously locked up.

Hassell No 1 lift bridge brought a bonus - it is currently left open all the time! And sunshine . . . 

Hassell  No 2, however still needs to be wound up and, in repayment for the bonus earlier this one takes 20% more turns that all the others.

For a while we had a very pleasant sunny interlude and, despite several very dark clouds overing nearby, we only had a short light drizzle before we arrived at Tilstock bridge and then moored at the Visitor Mooring just beyond.

5.3 Miles - 6 Locks (and 4 lift bridges, but one was open)