Brinklow Bound

Saturday night as we were promised, we had a lovely firework display, free of charge, courtesy of The Globe at Snareston.

Due to camera limitations the only half decent photo we could get of the firework display.

Sunday morning dawned bright and with one of those wonderful misty canal mornings and heralding a fantastic sunny day ahead.

The view from ‘Chance’ on Sunday morning with bridge 61 (the last bridge on the canal) ahead of us.

A wonderful autumn sight in the grass around the basin.

A view of the basin and winding hole at the end of the canal.  Beyond the little white foot bridge is another 9 miles of canal, under restoration at present (albeit very slowly!), ending at Moira.

On the way back on Sunday and our first treat – the Snarestone Tunnel – only 250 yards long but nonetheless exciting as always.

Our next treat on our journey back was Shackerstone and ……..

….. the wonderful Victorian station which forms the headquarters of the Battlefield Line.  We moored up and took Oscar for the 1/2mile walk up to the station where we had a coffee in the equally well presented tea rooms.

The tea rooms were quite busy but everyone scattered when I got the camera out.  However, they were very pleased to know they would get some free advertising on our blog site!  The station is well worth a visit even if you don’t go on the train ride.

Back on the “road” again and our next treat was to see working narrow boat ‘Gosty Hill’.  It’s great to see a coal boat trading on this canal as it was originally built to transport the good quality coal from the pits in the area – Moira coal was highly sort after on the London market.  Although we knew ‘Gosty’ was somewhere in the area we were fairly desperate for coal last week and bought it elsewhere. Pity.

Today was very different, weather-wise, to yesterday – very dank and gloomy and quite cold at the tiller. It doesn’t bode too well for the rest of the week so we’ve  decided to press on today and get back to Brinklow marina a day early.

Not many photos today due to the weather but James decided to take this one of these very old hawthorns and also the smoke coming out of the chimney – little things please little minds!

Deciding to push on and get off the Ashby Canal we came to bridge 1 (the first bridge on the canal) and, shrouded in the mist ahead, the junction with the Coventry Canal.

Tonight we moored at, what is fast becoming, one of our regular moorings just after bridge 19 above the aqueduct.  We’re on our own with just the trains again.

Tomorrow we’re due to arrive at Brinklow Marina mid morning and will spend a few days winterising ‘Chance’ before we go home for a while.  We still hope to use ‘Chance’ in the winter, if the weather allows us, and we shall still continue to blog whatever we’re doing.

As another lovely treat we are meeting up with John and Ali from nb Triskaideka for a farewell meal tomorrow night as they’ve also just winterised their boat nearby.