We made it! But there’s work to be done.

Monday 25^th to Wednesday 27^th March; Long Itchington to Calcutt marina

We have a couple of days’ breathing space before we must be on our way home. So we stayed put for the day and Dave took advantage of the conveniently close bus stop to get to Leamington station and travel back to Droitwich Spa marina for the car.  So I did the really hard stuff of taking Meg for a walk along the disused railway line in the glorious sunshine!  Bridge 26A used to carry the old branch line from Weedon to Leamington, passing through Braunston, Flecknoe, Napton & Stockton, and Southam & Long Itchington stations.  The map here shows how very useful it would be to boaters if it were still operating.  

National Cycle route 41, known as the Lias Line, follows this part of the old route.  If you turn left from the bridge you will see that the path narrows and is in a direct line towards Southam cement works, which was also served by the railway.  The name ‘Lias’ refers to the geological strata in this area, which also gives its name to the Blue Lias pub further along the canal.

Comma butterfly

The section we walked along is managed by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust which is hoping to re-create the limestone grassland which would have been here originally. At the moment there are banks of nettles which are the food plant for the caterpillars of the brilliantly coloured Red Admiral, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Comma butterflies (so we shouldn’t complain too much about nettles!).  This comma had been scrapping with another – like several other species, the males hold territories and will see off interlopers as they wait for a female to come along.

Dave returned mid-afternoon, having walked back along the canal from Calcutt.

Before we left our mooring on Tuesday, we followed the old railway line and the lane into Long Itchington village for some supplies – the Co-op here has a much wider range than the little shop near the second lock.

We ascended Stockton locks quite easily – there were several boats on their way down and in the end we saw more boats in three hours than on any other day of this trip.  One of them was the widebeam hotel boat Kailani which looked rather more luxurious than Chuffed!  It is based at Wigram’s Turn marina and was off to the Saltisford Arm to collect passengers for its first trip of the season.

The Willow Wren training base is having more construction work carried out.

A little further on a pair of swans had chosen an elevated site where reeds have been cleared, taking full advantage of the floating bits nearby.

We moored for lunch on the stretch between the entrance to Ventnor and Calcutt marinas, before Dave walked up to the office to find out where we would be mooring.  The sunshine has brought the coltsfoot into full open bloom.

We are moored on the Calcutt visitor area.  In the past we have been on one of the permanent pontoons but there are so many more boats around now that they are all full.  This will make our preferred cruising pattern of marina-hopping without a fixed plan more difficult than it has been up to now.  The outlook is not so pretty now, but a working boatyard is better than a derelict factory. 

10 locks, 3½ miles in 2 days

We packed up and went home on the Wednesday.  The boat needs to come out of the water for the rudder to be fixed, and we will have the hull blacked too.  Dave discovered a leak from the gearbox the other day so that needs to be fixed, but he will fit a new battery condition meter himself.  We are still waiting to hear from RCR about the thermostat housing.

It’s not been quite the trip we hoped for!  But nobody got hurt, the boat didn’t sink and although there is money to be shelled out we were pleased to be out on the water again and enjoyed our trip in spite of the frustrating bits.

Trip stats

We travelled 43 miles, 1½ furlongs of narrow canals and 20 miles, 5¼ furlongs of broad canals, about 64 miles in total.  We travelled on the Worcester and Birmingham, BCN Main Line and Icknield Port loop, North Stratford and the Grand Union canals.

There were 108 locks – 65 narrow and 43 broad.  On the North Stratford there were 2 manually operated draw bridges and the electric Shirley Drawbridge.  We passed through 7 tunnels; Tardebigge, Shortwood, Wast Hills, Edgbaston (twice), all on the W&B, Brandwood on the North Stratford and Shrewley on the Grand Union.

A beautiful spring day!

Sunday 24^th March; Cape to Long Itchington

It was very cold in the deep shade of the flats opposite the visitor moorings at Cape, so we set off earlier than we would normally have done to get out of it.  At the top lock the sun was shining in a glorious blue sky.

The paddle gear seemed very heavy to our tired and aching arms after yesterday’s descent of Hatton.  We used the two-windlass method to make life a little easier.

At least the locks today are not all together, so we can recover between them.  At the bottom Cape lock is the short cut to the main road on which Warwick Hospital stands; just follow the path and turn left at the end – it’s less than a mile.  It looks even closer to the moorings opposite Kate Boats.

It was still cold enough to need our thermals as we cruised towards Leamington.  A visit to Tesco was needed.  There was a lot of yellow jacketed activity on the approach to bridge 46;   it was the local IWA group on one of their regular clear-ups.

The organiser helped us moor on the end of the Tesco mooring.  We needed Tesco rather than Lidl because Lidl doesn’t do papers!  When we came back a couple of young lads were negotiating with the volunteers for a bike they had just hauled out.

As we went through Leamington we passed the recently completed student flats alongside the moorings for the town.  The artwork on the hoardings was all long gone, of course, but a splendid cat now glares down from a wall, pretending to ignore the mouse at its feet.

We had a pleasant stop at Offchurch for lunch in the sunshine before pottering off again, having shed our thermals at last.  Cruising was just glorious in warm(ish) weather without too much wind.  I took this snap of nowhere in particular, just to illustrate the general loveliness of it all.

We pottered on through the remaining locks to Long Itchington, passing just one other boat.  We knew there was a hire boat ahead, because we found their windlass at Radford lock top gate.  Soon afterwards a chap puffed up having run all the way back from Fosse bottom lock to retrieve it.  Of course, with them ahead we had to turn all the locks, but easily made Long Itchington where we moored a couple of bridges before the pubs, out in the peace and quiet.

9½ miles, 11 locks

Not the best end to a day (2)

Saturday 23^rd March; the Boot moorings to Cape Locks

We started at 8, dropping down to the water point opposite the lake by the road to Kingswood village.  I left Dave bringing Chuffed down lock 18 while I nipped across to the shop for some essentials.

Dave had started the water filling as I returned with the paper and a nice-looking loaf of bread.  This tap seems to have much better pressure than the one at the junction and we were soon on our way again.  The swans have built their nest and Mrs Swan is sitting on her eggs.

I noticed what looks like some fishing line across the picture when I cropped it for the blog, so I’ve contacted CRT to tell them about it.  It looks as though it would be out of the swans’ way, but stray fishing line is not a good thing.

We paused briefly at the junction to empty 2 cassettes – we were getting perilously close to having no cassette space left!  Violets were blooming along the path where we moored.

We turned south towards Warwick and made tracks towards the Hatton flight.  The pair of derelict boats is still looking very neglected, but two new license plates have appeared – red, does that denote something in particular? – and the mooring lines look strong and fairly new.  Very much a project for someone.

We got the brolly out in preparation for Shrewley tunnel.  It’s usually wet, at least in part, and today was no exception.

Fortified with cookies we started our descent of Hatton locks.  The canal was very quiet and we had seen no other moving boat all morning.  We really need to get these locks under our belt today, so down we went, though keeping a wary eye out behind us, so we could wait if someone else arrived at the top.  They didn’t.

The CRT depot is above lock 42

We had to turn every single lock, but we could lock ahead, slowly but efficiently.  The sun was out, and there were plenty of gongoozlers, but none were interested enough to ‘have a go’ so it was hard work.  We only raised paddles on one side – Dave timed us last time we came this way, and you gain a mere 45 seconds a lock by opening both paddles.  The lock fills and empties more quickly, but the extra labour involved is not worth 45 seconds!  From the top of lock 40 I could just see, in the far distance at Middle Lock Bridge, the boat in front of us.  They must have been moored at the top of the locks last night and were 7 locks ahead.

We had a lunch stop on the long pound above lock 29, and were comfortably moored at Cape locks before teatime. 

Oh yes, the less-than-perfect end to the day.  When you are having chemotherapy, you are at higher risk of infection than normal.  In order to destroy any remaining cancer the drugs have to target cells that are actively dividing.  This unfortunately includes the production of new blood cells, so your white cells, the ones that fight infection, get a hammering.  Symptoms such as the sore throat and low temperature that I have had for a couple of days need to be checked out pronto, in case you have a bacterial infection instead of just a virus.  So, with me feeling a terrible fraud, we crossed the top lock and walked to the conveniently close Warwick hospital.  After having my wrist metaphorically slapped for not having gone to a hospital two days earlier I had the full works – multiple takings of temperature, blood pressure, blood tests, ECG, chest x-ray, then intravenous antibiotics. They give you ‘just-in-case’ antibiotics before the bloods come back, as without your normal white blood cell level you are at high risk of any bacterial infection turning to sepsis, which can quickly be fatal.  While I knew all this, after a lifetime of ‘not bothering the doctor’ and dealing with minor ailments myself, I just didn’t take my symptoms seriously.  I know better now.  Luckily it turned out to be ‘just’ a virus so I was discharged, with another gentle wrist-slap to make sure I will be a good girl if there is a next time.

By the way, we can highly recommend Warwick A&E.  They were calm and efficient, and lovely with it.  We were in and out within 2 hours, even on a Saturday night.

8 miles, 6 narrow locks, 21 broad locks, Kingswood Junction, Shrewley tunnel.

A running repair and on to the Boot

Friday 22^nd March; Lyons’ Boatyard to Kingswood, below lock 14

We pushed across to Lyons’ boatyard this morning, still having heard nothing from RCR.  We needed to know whether we could cruise without risking damage to the engine, and as Lyons’ is a Barrus specialist (we have a Barrus Shire engine) we reckoned we could trust their advice.  The engineer confirmed the leak was coming from the cap on the thermostat housing, and as the unit was probably the original, and therefore 18 or so years old, RCR would be expecting to replace the whole unit.  So, with Sikaflex to seal the leak, and as long as we kept a close eye on the engine temperature, we would be good to go.

Just one issue, though – he noticed a lot of play on the tiller.  We had thought it was feeling a little looser than normal, but these things creep up on you and we hadn’t realised how bad it had got.  Dave went down the weed hatch to check the bolts  holding the rudder on, and ascertained that the one he could reach was tight so the rudder wasn’t going to just drop off.  What happens, apparently, is that gradually the holes the bolts go through enlarge slightly, and then the boat needs to come out of the water to have everything checked and things replaced as necessary.  We hope it will just be the bolts.  So as we are not cruising rivers, and will be going gently anyway, we decided to move on and get the work done at Calcutt.

So off we went, carefully.  After such a late start – getting on for 12 – we had lunch on the move.  The sun was out, and even though the wind was cold, it was lovely cruising weather.  The engine temperature remained normal and by 4 o’clock we had passed through the two manually operated draw bridges, having come through Shirley drawbridge, with its new control panel without incident (and only holding up 5 or 6 cars).  We started off down the Lapworth flight, gradually shedding layers of clothing as we went. 

Most of the locks were in our favour so it was easy work.  In the photo above, the approach to lock 7, you can see a yellow-jacketed figure leaning agaist the bridge.  I hoped it was a boat coming up, or just a gongoozler happy to help - but no such luck!  He just stood there as I heaved the gates open, and totally ignored us.  Oh well.  

The overflows were running strongly, which would have made it difficult for boats going up.

But we met no boats today, other than letting a share boat through one of the bridges.  We haven’t seen more than 3 or 4 boats in a day so far.  The light was beginning to go as we dropped down to lock 14, the one above the long curving pound where there is room to moor.

The picture doesn’t really show how much the light was fading.  (Sorry about the camera shake.)  We decided it wouldn’t be safe to do the rest of the locks to the junction, so moored up.  We tried to book a table at the Boot, which does excellent food, but there was nothing available till 9 so we walked down to the Navigation instead.  It was excellent, and cheaper too!

RCR called during the day to request a photo of the plate which shows the engine number, and confirmed they would be replacing the thermostat housing if we chose to accept their estimate.

13 locks, 10½ miles, 3 lift bridges (including the electric Shirley drawbridge).