Rugeley

 

Here I am Rune

Distance 5.5 miles

Total 5016 Locks  362 Tunnels

Running total mileage 7,559.3 miles

 

As planned, despite a couple of delays, we got to Rugeley in time to catch the Tesco Supermarket before they shut at 4pm. The urgent supply needed being toilet rolls that we had run out of!

The couple of delay were to assist a heritage type boat that was having difficulty getting stuck in the canal. We first came across it just North West of Kings Bromley marina where some woman on the towpath said that a boat ahead was ,”Stuck on a culvert”. Have to say I didn’t have much of a clue what she meant since I couldn’t see how anyone could get “stuck on a culvert” in the middles of the canal. I don’t know what she was stuck on, but stuck she certainly was. I managed to squeeze past on her port side and then reversed back, picked up her bow-line and attached it to the stern mooring stanchion and after 4 fairly hefty pulls, got her free. Thought was was my ‘good deed’ for the day and yet after we moored at Rugeley, she caught up with us and as she tried to pass us at mooring she stuck again! We pushed and heaved and rocked her boat but it wouldn’t shift so once again I cast off from our mooring, attached her bow-line to my stern and once again yanked her off whatever was stopping her. I then went back to my mooring leaving her to continue on her way. I still don’t know what was causing the problem though, I cannot think of anything on the underwater profile of a narrowboat that would cause it to jam in the way that it did. I can understand running over something in the canal (a car perhaps!!) that will stop your boat, but I don’t know what, or how she has something on the bottom of her boat to stop her in this way. The only real saving grace was that she didn’t get stuck in Armitage Tunnel because that would have caused a real problem.

Tomorrow it will be on to Tixall Wide all being well.