Today we travelled with June and Bob on nb ‘Autumn Myst’, leaving our mooring at Wightwick at 8:30am (the pronunciation is ‘witwick’ and it doesn’t have an h after the W as it was spelt in the last blog)!
Our travelling companion, the beautifully built Sandhills’ narrow boat ‘Autumn Myst’ at the start of our journey today.
About half way along the route today we went through the Bratch Locks – a trio of locks which were originally built as a staircase but later separated into single locks to eliminate water waste. They are unique on the canal system so we are told and immaculately kept by the lock keeper who is on hand to help you through if you need it.
The middle lock at Bratch.
All along this section of the Staffs and Worcs Canal are these beautifully designed spill weirs.
At Wombourne we stopped briefly to use the very conveniently situated Sainsbury's store and quite by chance, we moored next to nb ‘Lydia’ and its owner Tony, who we met 4 years ago on the Llangollen Canal when we had our previous boat.
It was nice to meet you again Tony.
Another lovely spill weir.
Half way down the Botterham “staircase” – looking back towards the towering bottom gates of the previous lock.
Tonight we’ve moored up just outside Swindon. It feels a bit strange for James as he used to live in another Swindon – the very much bigger one in Wiltshire!
The weather has been very good again today – the rain holding off until we moored up and we even got the washing dry! Even then we’ve only had a couple of quick showers.
Oscar with his new young, 5 month old friend Phoenix from nb Autumn Myst this evening, at our mooring tonight.
Lovely cruising on the Staffs and Worc. Good to see your pics and remember our trip last year.
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