Braunston

Some days last week were abominable, wind, rain, cold. But we had a very enjoyable time staying put at Newbold on Avon. We had a great spot at the southern end of the tunnel. It is as quiet as a churchmouse with two pubs and a mini-market within 50 yards. Weather improved and allowed us to do maintenance and cleaning.
We moved on down through Rugby to Braunston on friday and found a good quiet spot close to facilities. We will chill out here and bank some sleep ready for the return flight next thursday.
Braunston is on the Grand Union Canal and has a rich canal boat heritage that continues in the present day with several hire boat companies being based here. There is a large marina and several quaint pubs. The Admiral pub is alongside one of the broad locks that can accomodate two 70 ft boats. The antics of the boat crews as they bring their boats in for the first time and with 10 minutes tuition makes for a popular spectator sport. This section of canal has more than the usual number of working boats with butty's and very few fibreglass cruisers.

Supposedly edible, but we did not try them.
Braunston butcher shop

Emptying a broad lock

Powder puff sky

Storm clouds

Coventry weekend

We left Hinckley marina on monday after an enjoyable weekend and a four night stay. As usual it all went too fast. On Friday we did shopping and tried to visit the Triumph factory but it was their half day off and besides that, tours have to be booked in advance. On Saturday we drove to Stoke Bruerne, it was the 25th anniversary of the reopening of the Blisworth tunnel so celebrations were happenning at both tunnel ends. It was good, especially the BBQ pork roll with extra crackling washed down with a pint of Northamptonshire's best cider.

On Sunday morning we attended a car boot sale, it was like the Lightning Ridge Sunday market but much larger with about 200 sellers and hundreds of buyers. As with the Ridge market, most items were well worn, incomplete, from a bygone era or absolutely useless. We rubber-necked all the stalls looking for that special something then gave up and went home for lunch.

After lunch at the boat we drove to Coventry, did the transport museum and the Cathedral, checked out the moorings at the basin and well, thats it for Coventry. Once again I can't speak highly enough about the Enterprise Car Rental service. http://www.enterprise.co.uk/
We won't be going down the Coventry arm having seen enough of Coventry on the weekend. Instead we have continued south through Hawksbury Junction and onto the Oxford Canal. Someone had damaged the stoplock at Hawksbury and the lock had been closed for 30 hours for repairs. The lock opened about 3pm and a group of BW personnel were manning (and womanning) the lock to speed boats thru. Fortunately it is only a stop lock with a the Oxford canal being a few inches higher than the Coventry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkesbury_Junction Scores of boats were still moored up in both directions and we quietly glided past around 5pm and only waited for 3 boats up and 3 down before it was our turn. Just after we had negotiated the stop lock we went under a small bridge and something fouled the prop. We barge poled to a bank and found a shag pile rug wrapped around the propellor. It was easily removed and within 15 minutes we were back on route. We moored soon after on an embankment with a view across a golf course. We were alone and it was so quiet, birds and rabbits were enjying the twilight and so did we. Next morning we discovered another boat had moored some distance behind us. They must have arrived in the dark and would have had to clear giant rhubarb plants to reach the side as we had taken the only good access in the area. We are now in Warwickshire, moored on the outskirts of Rugby, just past the southern portal of the Newbold tunnel and outside the Barley Mow pub.

So in reverse order, here's some snaps.



Newbold Tunnel, Rugby
Moored on the Oxford on Monday night. We are right over an aquaduct about 8 foot wide that allows golfers to pass under the canal between greens on both sides.

Hi guys.



Lady Godiva on a brass (entire) horse.

Coventry Cathedral destroyed by bombs dropped in WW2

Coventry canal basin. Great restoration job but lacks ambience and can only fit half a dozen boats. There were 3 boats in the basin when we visited and one was padlocked to the mooring with steel cables.

Coventry transport Museum. Waddyamean old? I used to ride one of these.

...and one of these.

T model ford, unrestored, best exhibit from my point of view.

Then again, this one looks good

Thrust 2, fastest car in the world. We took a ride in the simulator, ho hum, obviously these people have not travelled in my little red truck between Walgett and Lightning Ridge, now thats a ride cowboy.

Straight out of the cartoons or chitty chitty bang bang

I'll take it, name your price!

...and this one too

Now here is a late 40's Bentley, that we followed hoping it was on the way to a car show. At each roundabout the driver would floor it leaving our Ford Ka in a plume of smoke. I suspect from the accelleration and the size of the rear wheels that this car is not in concourse condition. Any way after 15 minutes it turned into a driveway and into its stable.

We only have 6 more sleeps on Rhapsody, then a couple of days later we will return to Corrimal. After that? who knows?

See these sites for more info : http://www.canaljunction.com/canal/coventry_ashby.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby,_Warwickshire

Ashby Canal

After freeing Rhapsody's fouled propellor we sauntered off dodging all manner of unbelievable debris through the Coventry canal and suburban backyards of Nuneaton. Every boat was travelling at tickover speed ever wary of tyres, tables, doonas, fridges, drums, logs and weeds. Our convoy had six canalboats nose to tail like a train. There may have been more boats but the winding route means your foward and rearward views are limited to three boats each way. Nevertheless some backyards were done up nice and surely provide an enjoyable place for a beer. We dropped off the convoy to turn left into the Ashby canal at Marsden Junction. What a contrast, the Ashby is more like a stream as it has clean water, earthen banks and beaches rather than the industrial piling and concrete sides we had just left behind on the Coventry. We had a nice lunch beside the canal next day when friends arrived with a gastronomic feast."
Today we turned around for the return trip down the Ashby and moored at Hinckley Marina, right outside the Brewers Fayre pub. We will have 4 nights here while using an Enterprise hire car to explore the parts of the canal system that time will not allow us to reach by boat. http://www.trinitymarinas.co.uk/the-marina

Triumph motorbike factory near Hinckley Marina
"Special ducks" Ashby

Ashby, Welcoming committee

Grassy canal

Ashby, corn high, no elephants eyed

Tight squeeze into the Ashby Canal at Marsden Junction.

Some use the Coventry canal wisely

Even grandly.

We have been taking it slow, real slow yesterday, in fact stopped with a steel ribbed tent wound around the prop. The spring steel slats and the rip stop nylon made a real tangle. I spent an hour with little success then called River Canal Rescue and he arrived within 15 minutes but left again in under 10 saying the boat would need to be slipped. He rang his supervisor and it was decided to get a second opinion next morning. Meanwhile I decided to give it another shot as slipping a 20 ton boat is not cheap and 3 hours later as the light was fading I had 90% cleared using a junior hacksaw and a box cutter. The remaining three turns of spring steel strap were around the prop shaft but loose so I couldn't get the hacksaw to bite into them. The access through the weed hatch is about 12 in x 8 inches and 12 inches deep to the prop. Only a double jointed orangutan could get both hands in there to work. This morning I attacked it again unsuccessfully and decided to clean the engine instead while waiting for the RCR to come with the right tool for the job, bolt cutters. It only took two snips to free the bundle and haul it to the towpath with the barge pole. We will have to carry the debris to the next disposal point.

Other than that and an encounter with a wayward hire boat that rammed us broadside on a turn, everything is great including the weather

Sparkling engine bay and motor

Camping tent anyone, guaranteed cyclone proof.

Atherstone

Swan family collecting papadam bits thrown from gally window, after a while they wouldn't eat them either.

Coal boat and yard. Most canal boats have solid fuel stoves for heating the interior during the colder months. Thats when the coal man does a brisk trade.

We came up 11 locks yesterday afternoon between Frazeley and Atherstone. All had very stiff ground paddles and very worn rack and pinions, but we managed and enjoyed a cider after we moored.

The grooves in the iron rod on the corner of a lock were worn into the metal by the hemp tow ropes that went across as the horse was pulling the cargo boats out of the lock.

This is the sort of boat that used to move cargo

This one is powered by a deisel engine and used to pull the butty that is alongside. The combination was known as "a pair"

Marina storage for pleasure boats

Woolly cattle, shows that summer has fallen short of expectations.

In surburban areas many residents grace the canal with trimmed gardens, fruit trees and flower beds.

Very nice too

Coventry Canal, Huddlesford

Yes its been a long time between blog postings but thats because we are very busy doing nothing much. Except for frequent sortees to interesting places abounding the canal. We were moored at Weston for 4 nights and at Hardsacre on monday night. Gosh the days fly. Today is the first day we have had a I'net connection since we left Stone. While at Weston we hired a car and went to all the local sights then on Sunday drove to Dorset and back to meet up with two cousins. We have trawled the galleries of Stafford, Stafford castle, Shugborough estate and of course the markets and a huge antique fair at the Staffordshire county showgrounds. Rhapsody is fine, no problems at all and no weed in the hatch since leaving the Caldon canal. We moored on the Coventry Canal at Fradley Junction on tuesday and mooved to Huddlesford yesterday, I'net service is sporadic. We have to give a free plug to Enterprise rent-a-car for their excellent service. We have now hired cars from enterprise on 3 weekends, their fri to mon rates are very good and they picked us up and returned us to the boat free of charge.
Fradley Junction and the Coventry so far have been interesting and fairly busy, the boaters call it "frantic Fradley" as there is a T intersection with locks on each side of the T and a swing bridge on the third exit. The 200 year old Swan pub sits on the junction with its patrons spilling out and watching the amusing comings and goings of a cnstant stream of 60 to 70 foot boats negotiating the locks or winding (turning 360) at the junction. On each side are moored boats that reduce the small space even further. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fradley_Junction
what else, oh ducks, black, white, brown and mottled in every combination. There was a really hot sunny day on tuesday and the blackberries lining the hedgerows beside the canal have ripened en masse. Also coming along are elderberries and sloe, the latter being used by many people to flavour gin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloe_gin
Someone I know ate some ripe elderberries today, seeds and all and got quite ill. Coming good now but will be more careful about eating the fruits of the canal in the future.


Plum Pudding Tunnel, coal muning subsidence caused damage so the top was removed and the canal runs thru the sandstone cut. bloody nuiscence them coal miners eh! No worries now, there are no mines thanks to Margaret.
Shawn the sheep and his gang. They look innocent enough....

So does he/she

and so say all of us

and so say all of us

well, most of us

whatever

Mill at Shugborough estate, and it works, wheat is milled for sale in the gift shop.

Duck waving to...

to .... this one who waves back.

He talks bull.... but I'm not going to tell him

Around here the ducks have funny colours and wear thier heads backwards, maybe the canal water has something to do with it.

Lovely canalside cottage at Weston and our hire car parked safely and watched over by the householder...and the chooks

Look carefully, there is a pheasant in the center of the photo

Ingestre stables, the hunt and all that stuff.

The High House at Stafford. Why does each floor jut out from the one below? Well in times gone by the contents of the nights bed pans were tipped out into the street below. Thats if each floor jutted out, if not, watch out below.

Inside the High House, 4 poster Royal Suite bed.

Staffordshire Show Ground antique fair. (and one seller had old rope)

Blackberries are in full swing, so are the stinging nettles

Gate paddles filling the Star Lock at Stone.