Stone

Here I am Rune

Distance 5.9 miles

Total 3714 Locks  233 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5526.9 miles

A bit of a wet day again today, since I’ve booked us in to have the Esperbacher heater serviced over the weekend I have to press on towards Gailey to get it done so had to travel in the rain today. Odd how it always seemed to rain the heaviest whenever we got to a lock.

The rain did however ease off as we got towards Stone where we have moored for the night. It was a bit sad that a memorial statue to Christina Collins, a murder victim of the 1800’s, that stands by bridge 94, Workhouse Bridge, is now almost invisible being covered by weeds. It is so well covered in fact that when I came past on the boat I thought it had been removed but when I walked back it is still there, but only for people who know about it.

What the 'Christina' statue should look like.....

.....and what it looks like now

I think that tomorrow we would hope to be at Great Haywood or thereabouts.

Trentham

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.2 miles

Total 3705 Locks  233 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5521 miles

We managed to clear the locks of Stoke on Trent today before the rain came in, but when it eventually did come, did it rain! It would be nice to go back to the days when it just rained, rather than coming down in monsoon downpours as it seems to be doing lately. 

Having got fed up of getting wet, we moored at the first available opportunity, hence we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere now, but I’ll call it Trentham. Since the forecast is for the rain to continue today, I think we’ll remain here for the rest of the day and see what tomorrow brings on the weather front.

Stoke on Trent (Westport Park)

Here I am Rune

Distance 4.5 miles

Total 3700 Locks  233 Tunnels

Running total mileage 5514.8 miles

Given the wet weekend, we have left moving on until today when the sunshine has once again returned. A productive day involving several locks, quite a bit of chaos around the Red Bull service area and of course, Harecastle Tunnel.

The locks weren’t too much of a problem, particularly are some of them were paired, the only issue was that several boats had also done the same as we had, remained moored for a couple of days, so once back on the move they, like us, needed to use the service block. Fortunately we arrived there early as the chaos developed throughout the morning as more boats arrived but had nowhere to moor up to sort out their domestic stuff.

After a bit of shuffling about we managed to escape the chaos and headed for the tunnel. It was the first time we’ve taken this boat through from north to south and today there was a convoy of 4 of us going through together. One thing I’ll say with that number of boats going through, the reverberations that you get in the tunnel from the sounds of the various engines, gets quite deafening in places.

We are now moored for the night at Westport Park where, according to the signs, there are showers that I might avail myself of.