Tixall Wide to Barlaston, with Rain as the Main Theme.

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

Leaving Tixall Wide

We spent a very quiet night at Tixall Wide - a total contrast to the wild conditions when we were there 4 nights ago.

Unusual, but attractive, bridge

Once we reached Great Haywood junction, instead of turning right, and retracing our steps from the outward journey. we instead made a left turn to carry on further up the Trent and Mersey canal.

Heavy rain in Stone

The trip North from here starts gently, with periodic locks, and we were reminded that when we passed this way last year, we were initially following a dozen young men on a hire boat on a "stag" event, but when we subsequently passed their boat the next day, all we got to see were dozens of abandoned beer cans.  The distinguishing feature of today though was not a stag party, but the highly variable weather.  A lot of the day was spent in heavy rain, though mercifully not with the horrendous winds of a few days ago.

More rain.

The locks start to kick in more at Stone, where there is a flight of four, which for some reason the Nicholson's guide comments as being deeper than most on narrow canals, but which are certainly no more so than other locks further up this canal.  By Stone it was raining heavily, and, failing to find anywhere convenient to tie up, that didn't mean a long walk, a planned trip to replenish supplies was abandoned.

Still raining

Instead we pressed on, ascending the further four lock flight at Meaford, and stopping at Barlaston.  The plan here was to get a pub meal, but I had failed to concentrate on the time, so when we arrived in the pub at less than  ten past eight, they had already stopped serving food.

I'm running out of rain captions.....

In fact the pub looked very uninviting, with few customers and no atmosphere, so although Cath was initially disappointed at cooking after a hard wet day, we in fact enjoyed a good meal on the boat, supplemented by a quite decent bottle of wine I managed to pick up at a local convenience store, even though it was now well after 9:00 pm on a Bank Holiday.  The store, it seemed, wanted business rather more than the pub!





Tixall Wide to Barlaston
Miles: 14.1, Locks: 12
Totals for extended trip....
Miles: 150.6, Locks: 79