Tuesday 14th August 2018



I walked to Trentham Gardens first thing, to buy a waistcoat I had seen. It’s nice to be able to walk at pace without Harvey dragging you back all the time. He is so frustrating to walk with. Got there only to find that the shops don’t open until 10am. Walked back, had breakfast and then cycled up there. Bought two waistcoats as consolation.

Arriving back at the boat and we decided to move straight away. Neither of us had particularly enjoyed our mooring at Trentham. We had houses overlooking us on both sides and wanted the country again. We seemed to have been moored in towns now for many days.

We quickly came across Trentham Lock, one of the deepest on the whole canal system at 11 foot 11 ins. Immediately after the lock you pass the Wedgewood Factory. This is well worth a visit and there are quite a few good moorings to facilitate a visit, but we had visited before and decided that was enough so we kept going.







Just before Burlaston an old guy in a Dutch Barge type boat pulled out in front of us. He was one of those absolute pain in the arse guys, working single handed and expecting everybody else to do the locks for them. Worse was his wife was inside the boat and not once came out.

Over the two miles to the next set of locks at Meaford, this guy was going so slow that we had to keep going into neutral and at times I was convinced he had stopped. Once at the locks we had a convoy of 4 boats all in a close line behind him. At the locks he just opened one of the paddles, then got back on his boat and waited for Brenda to do all the rest.


            



One of the Meaford Locksand Bridges,                                                                                       A Stowaway

notethe lorry strike to the bridge parapet

 

Everybody has every right to enjoy the canals in their own way. But if they want to go so slow, they should have a bit of consideration and let other people pass. At locks, every boater should do their own work and not just accept that other people will do the work for them in order to speed things up. That is completely unacceptable and, to be quite frank, is just taking the piss.

All the locks today, Trentham and Meaford were very busy, sometimes with as many as 5 boats waiting in each direction. A number of times the engine was stopped just to conserve fuel.

Once through the Meaford Locks we were hearing that the moorings in Stone were all taken. We pushed our way in to a mooring just before the first lock by asking another guy to move his boat closer to the one’s moored ahead and behind him. Even then we only just got in with inches to spare. I never understand why, in busy places, boats moor with a half boats length between them rather than close together in order to allow more boats to moor.

Do I sound like a grumpy old git?

We then had a walk up through Stone town centre after calling into the chandlery for yet more bits and pieces.

Stone rightly calls itself a canal town. It was the place where the first sod was cut for the building of the Trent and Mersey Canal. The town centre and the buildings surrounding it are delightful and we are looking forward to exploring in more detail tomorrow.



 











We called into the Star Inn for a few pints and ended up stopping for our dinner. The Star is just one of those pubs you have to call into. It sits right beside the bottom lock and apparently dates back to the 14th century. The whole place is very atmospheric. It ismentioned in the Guiness Book of Records as none of the rooms, and there are many, are on the same level.





We have a cheque with us that has to be paid into a Santander bank, but the nearest is in Stafford which is not near a canal. I can see we are going to have this cheque with us for quite a while. Also, there is no post office in Stone. Our post now, gets sent to a company in Telford, who have it all sent to a post office that you are going to be calling at. We are now hoping to have it all sent to Great Haywood where we should be in a few days time.

Also we are trying to arrange a place to be to pick the kids up next Monday. We should be able to make this at Tixall Wide, a beautiful spot on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, a short distance from Great Haywood Junction. A detour from our intended route but one well worth making for a few very quiet, peaceful days in the country.



Day Total: 5 locks; 4 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 4.2

Overall Total: 152 locks; 310 miles; 11 tunnels; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 173.5

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