Day 17 Tuesday 7 October
 Hack Green to Goldstone

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

The other day I bought a new waterproof coat as I'd left mine at home, well basically the new coat is not waterproof so today I got wet!  On a positive note, once I squeezed the water out of the coat it was quick drying once the rain stopped!

You join us once again on the Shropshire Union Canal; this part of  the canal used to be called the Liverpool & Birmingham Junction Canal & was one of the last canals to be built by Thomas Telford & was completed in 1835.  The SUC has sections where the canal runs through deep cuttings & sections where the canal runs up high on embankments, rather than going up & down through locks which slowed the progress of boats down drastically.  This type of canal is completely different to the Caldon Canal which were were on last week which is a contour canal & follows the contours of the land.
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Telford had realised that the most efficient way to design a canal was to have locks in flights & soon after leaving Hack Green this morning we reached Audlem Locks which are a flight of 15 locks which raise the canal up by 93' through the village of Audlem & fortunately the first 4 locks had boats coming out & also waiting to enter which makes the job so much easier!

Ready to leave lock 15 of Audlem Flight with another boat waiting to enter

Shroppie Fly Pub between locks 12 & 13, with a boat at the water point

The Shroppie Fly pub used to be a warehouse & is now a popular pub - we ate there last time we came this way & they had live music; it's the only place I've ever been where a member of the band played a Kazoo!

Kingbur Mill Audlem

The picture above shows Kingbur Mill which was built in the First World War, it used to produce animal feeds; boats would bring in the raw materials & then take away the sacks of food.  The mill is now a craft shop.  These locks were really busy this morning as I guess some people didn't worry about moving their boats yesterday with all that rain!

Eos at Lock 10 Audlem Flight SUC

By Lock 10 there is a barrel roofed building that was used by stonemasons, blacksmiths & carpenters who worked maintaining this flight of locks.

The former Lock Keepers cottage at the top lock had a little stall with home made brownies for sale - it would be rude to say no!  By the time we'd reached the top of this flight the rain had eventually stopped & I had a chance to put the kettle on & make coffee to go with our brownies before the next 5 Adderley Locks.  By the side of the top lock of Adderley Locks there is a farm shop where last time we'd bought Lemon Drizzle Cake, unfortunately the lady had taken all the produce to market today but we did buy 12 freshly laid eggs.

Market Drayton is the only town that the former Liverpool & Birmingham Junction Canal went through on it's way from Wolverhampton to Nantwich.  Opposite the water point is this former wharf where cargo would have been loaded & off-loaded from the boats

Market Drayton SUC

 As I said above the SUC goes through many cuttings & the lower 2 locks of our last flight of 5 locks at Tyrley are located in a sandstone cutting.  It is said that parts of the canal here never sees sunlight so many mosses & ferns grow here.

Looking back from Tyrley Bottom Lock

Approach to Tyrley Locks

We had planned to stop at the top of the Tyrley Locks on the 48 hour moorings where they have rings that you can tie your boat to, but all the moorings were taken so we thought we'd look around the corner in the hope there was space there as it was 6:20 & sunset today is 6:34 so we didn't have long but there was no suitable moorings there either so we had no choice but to carry on!

The next 2 miles of this canal take you through Woodseaves Cutting which is almost 100 foot deep in places & even on a bright sunny day would be gloomy & damp with water running down the sandstone rocks.  There were frequent avalanches during construction this section of the canal has a 2mph speed limit to stop the wash from boats dislodging more sandstone.

One of the High Bridges in Woodseaves Cutting SUC

There are 2 of these High Bridges in Woodseaves cutting & as you can see in the picture above, it had got quite dark & we even had to put our tunnel light on.  Luckily once out the other side of this deep cutting we found somewhere suitable to moor so are now in the hamlet of Goldstone near the Wharf Tavern - don't ask me what's out there as I don't know!!

Funny sight of the day

Saw this just before Tyrley Bottom Lock

Today we've travelled for almost 8.5 hours up 25 locks