Sunday 12th August 2018



We both had a bad night. There is something comforting about rain when you are in bed on the boat, a bit like being in a tent or caravan. The hum drum noise, when you are snug and warm, kind of sets you off drifting. But we were moored under trees and the wind kept on dropping a load of water onto the roof with a loud noise, waking us up.

Brenda couldn’t face any breakfast on account of her mouth ulcers.

We left our moorings at 9:30 and went to the service point just inside the Caldon turn-off for water, cassette and rubbish before reversing back for the first of the downhill Stoke Locks. All down hill now until the River Trent.













The leakage in the first two Stoke Locks was very bad.

The top lock would empty itself in about 15 minutes.

I estimated that each lock holds 150 tons of water,

150000 litres, 32930 gallons wasted every 15 minutes.

That’s a lot of water.  









There must be nice areas in Stoke-on-Trent. But if there are, you certainly don’t see them from the canal. The whole town seems to consist of derelict industry, run down housing, huge retail parks and massive traffic intersections. The place is non-descript, unfriendly, anonymous and busy.





             

                                    

Stoke is finally left behind at the A500/A50 intersection with the canal passing beneath the road complex. The Britannia, or bet356, Stadium is on one side and a huge waste plant on the other.

Cockshutts Lock 37 was unusual in the railway bridge that crosses right after the bottom gates has a cut-out fitted to accommodate the balance beam.







Just four miles after leaving the previous nights mooring we came to Trentham, seemingly a much more pleasant place. We wanted to moor beside bridge 106 to visit Trentham Gardens but we kept running aground at the only site we saw. So we turned, retraced our steps for a few hundred yards, turned again, and moored up just before the bridge.

The day had been overcast with occassional rain. However, the rain had gone off shortly after we moored so washing was hung out but we have to get a collapsible clothes dryer for the winter.

We went for a short walk and, returning to the boat, read for the rest of the day.

We aim to visit the gardens tomorrow, hopefully the weather will be drier.



Day Total: 5 locks; 4 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 4.6

Overall Total: 147 locks; 306 miles; 11 tunnels; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 169.3






Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 18, 2018 at 3:42 AM

    Do you want your clothes airer back? ?😘😘

    ReplyDelete

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