Hawne Basin

Here I am Rune

Distance 7.7 miles

Total 817 Locks 39 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1237.9miles

Rather surprisingly a day of thrashing our way through ice on the canal to get to Hawne Basin. Mostly if was fairly thin but there was a short section below Factory Locks on the New Main Line where it was actually starting to slow the boat down. I have checked on arrival at Hawne Basin and it doesn’t appear to have done much damage to the blacking on the bottom of the boat.

Once again the passage through Gorsty Tunnel was impeded by some crap around the prop requiring a stop in the middle of the tunnel again. At least on this occasion I managed to get a photo of the poster halfway through advising of the distance to Hawne Basin. The only other event of note on the trip was whilst going through Netherton Tunnel I was a bit distracted by lights coming in the other direction. Before entering the tunnel I thought I had seen some lights and thought at that time that they were probably cyclists but as I got closer to them they dazzled me and I lost some of my night vision so wasn’t sure whether it was cyclists or another boat, so moved over to the right of the canal, just in case. As they passed it turned out that it was about 6 cyclist all with fairly bright headlights (which explained why I had been dazzled). 

 

Breaking the ice

The 'interesting' poster halfway through Gorsty Tunnel

Showing the considerable change in roof height in the tunnel