I don’t believe it….. We finally get cruising, and ….. the memo comes through from CTR that there’s been a landslide and trees down ahead of us stopping navigation for at least 2 days. Not only that but the weather is perfect cruising weather.
We were sitting at the Fazeley Junction
Our options included staying put until we got the allclear, detouring through Aston and centre of Birmingham, or …. back tracking back to Fradley Junction, and carrying on along the Trent and Mersey then up the River Soar. Rightly or wrongly, we didn’t fancy sitting it out, or facing all the Aston locks with unknown mooring options, so we winded and back tracked.
We’ll do the Fazeley canal another time. As I’d just had another few days off the boat sorting out mum’s affairs, we were desperate to be cruising again, and my reward was seeing our first ducklings of the year.
I had an easy lock free day, and even when we turned right at Fradley the volunteers were ready and willing to help us through,
Then we got to Alrewas, such a pretty place,
Until you see this
It didn’t take us completely by surprise to see the red warning signs but we’d spoken to the lockies and we knew the river levels were falling. Much to the consternation of a holiday boater we went through the lock knowing we could moor up on the other side of the village and await our go ahead.
Sure enough, CRT came along and removed the padlocks giving us the all clear ride the rapids. Several boats were itching to go through ASAP, but we decided to wait until the morning.
Thought for the day
