The Trent & Mersey Canal, Great Haywood to Fradley Junction - 22.10.13

Well it's autumn good and proper now, the trees are loosing branches into the canal, whole trees have been uprooted in the strong winds we've been having, the leaves are coming off the trees in bucket loads, the weather is a combination of wind, rain, more wind and more rain. It's not too cold though, but everything is damp and wet, muddy and soggy and boggy, windy and windswept.

The towpaths are changing now, not so pleasant to walk through the boggy black mud to get on to the boat, mud and leaves get bought into the boat every time you step outside and then inside. Jack has to be washed down after every walk he has, it's the watering can and canal water at the moment. When it gets too cold we'll treat him to some warm water out of the tap!  The outside of the boat's getting dirtier all the time, every time we use a rope on the boat it leaves a muddy rope mark on our beautiful paintwork! The gunwhales are muddy, impossible to keep clean, the roof is always laiden with fallen leaves ....

But that's out there! Not in here! In the boat it's cosy and warm, the fire ticks along lovely keeping us all warm and dry, a lovely shelter when you've been outside open to all elements for several hours getting wetter and colder in the windy wet weather. We've got our little safe haven, our cosy cave ... And it's a very special place to be, on the inside, so close to the horrid weather, yet cosy and safe and warm.

We don't move far now, we can stay in one place for up to two weeks if we want to, only having to move when our water and food supply gets low.

The Trent & Mersey Canal, Tuesday 22nd October 2013

..... and finally under the bridge to the Trent & Mersey canal ......now we're heading south towards Coventry. 
We're only on the Trent & Mersey canal for 12 miles and 5 locks. Then we turn on to the Coventry canal at Fradley junction.

We've just come from Wolverhampton way, and we're now heading south towards The Trent.

....but first we get water and dump rubbish

Stopping at Great Haywood water point, in the pouring rain

and in the pouring rain go through Great Haywood lock, and into a cosy spot by the bridge. 

Moored up in the 48 hour moorings in the woodlands of Shrugborough Hall

Were out of the wind and rain with a view towards a meadow with cows and sheep and right by the beautiful National Trust building and land of Shrugborough Hall.

Shrugborough Hall, National Trust Building 

And our view out of our kitchen window! The river Trent in the foreground.

There's amazing meadows and woodlands with secret caves hidden in the rocky hills. 

Caves and rocky cliffs in amongst the woodlands surrounding us

There's a great farm shop on the junction too where we go and spend too much money on lovely stuff!

Geoff the vinyl man turns up in the pouring rain with the name stickers, gets soaked through, has a cuppa and walks back to the junction, and gets soaked again!

We sat in most of the time we were here, watching people splash past through the mucky puddles and boaters going by huddled under umbrellas bending in the wind.

We go exploring the river and fields around us

We braved the weather and wandered into the village of Great Haywood and walked the meadows by the River Trent, already in flood and flowing like crazy! 

Paul brings back a lovely yew branch, ready to chop up and keep us cosy and warm

We moved the boat just through the bridge to the 14 day moorings, cant get moved on then!

We get one side of the name stickers on the boat.... as the massive winds whip up a storm around us

Last bit, steady as it goes...

I thought it would be a good idea to stick on the name graphics, bit of a silly idea actually as the wind was taking the backing paper off for me! But it was fine in the end, looks good.

At least the name's finally on the boat, even if it was only stickers!

The predicted stormy winds came, blowing us about by the towpath, chucking acorns, leaves and small branches at our boat, trees swaying scarily around us.

The cows came to see us in the mornings....

But we woke up on Thursday 24th October and it was freakily quiet and still! The winds had died down, the sun was low and bright in the sky shining in our eyes, but we didn't care!

After our walk with Jack over the water logged meadows we set off. 

The sun shone down on us, low in the sky

It was a beautiful day, the woodlands looks lovely and after a mile we came to our first and only lock of the day. 

Approaching the first lock out of Great Haywood

In and out quick we set off again, this time in the sunshine heading for Rugely, another 3.5 miles. 

The beautiful sunshine was a welcome break for us....

.... shining around every corner.....

.... making the beauty really shine out on the canal

...... glistening and gleaming under every bridge

Gardens back on to the canal from high hills overlooking the boats 

Lovely to see the different back gardens of the houses backing on to the canal

...and we soon make our stop on the 48hr moorings near Morrisons. 

Stopped off for a Morrisons shopping stop in Rugeley

After the cupboards are full again we move off. 

The huge towering power station at Rugely dominates the sky line for several miles

We leave Rugely and go through what was once a tunnel, only 130yds long, but in 1971 the roof was removed because it was collapsing. 

This was once dug out as a tunnel, only it collapsed and was never repaired.

There's now a road bridge that goes over the old tunnel, but the sides are the original dug out tunnel walls

It's now an awkward section where you can't see round the corner and it's only one boat wide! So you have to get someone to walk ahead to make sure no boats are coming! 

Toilets stacked up in the yards of the Armatage Shanks factory.....

..... and machinery clunks and chugs away as we cruise past the enormous glass backed factory

We cruise on past the toilet and sink factory's of Armitage, and on through Handsacre. The sunshine has gone now, the day is cold and grey. We had done 11 miles and one lock and were ready to stop when we get to Kings Bromley, but there's nowhere to stop here. 

We can's stop on this bit of towpath, its shallow and the canal is too narrow to pull over

The towpath is rough and weedy and the canal is shallow at the edges. We went on another mile till we got to Wood End Lock and luckily there was a place just before the lock moorings big enough to fit the boat in with a lovely grassy bank. 

We pull over just before the lock mooring, a lovely grassy bit of bank

This'll do fine, we tied up and took Jack out for a walk. Not very exciting here, not much of a walk. We walked a mile to Fradley Locks to see if there was any space at the moorings there, but as always it was full. 

The 'always full up moorings' at the top of Fadley Locks, never managed to moor here!

I've always wanted to stop here, but it's always full up. Even in October it's full up!

When we got back to the boat we put the stickers on the boat the other side, lit the fire and cosied in for the night. The rain hammered down on the boat all night.

On Friday we woke to more rain banging on the boat and after Paul took Jack out on a soggy mushy walk we stayed put for a bit to let the rain pass.

We set off in the rain through the first lock....

It had eased off after a while so we set off through the first lock, round the corner past the long wooded straight....

Looking back a the long wooded straight, even in October all the 14 day mooring spots were taken!

... to the next two Fradley locks where there was a volunteer lock keeper ready and willing to help us through! 

The volunteer lock keeper pushes the lock gate shut after we left the lock

Fradley junction sign post, we've come from Great Haywood, and turned towards Coventry, ready to join the Coventry Canal. If we continued on the Trent & Mersey we would be heading towards Shardlow

The Swan and the Gift shop at Fradley junction

After leaving the locks we got to the sharp right turn of the Coventry Canal, with a pub and a little canal gift shop right on the junction.
.
.....as you leave the Trent & Mersey canal and get on the Coventry canal there's a little swing bridge, Paul jumped off and opened it up as I cruised on through.

Coventry Canal to follow.......