Another night of high winds and torrential rain but by the time it was time to take woofit out it had almost stopped. Ian had mentioned a nature reserve near to bridge 4 so I persuaded him to leave while it was dry and cruise the mile and a half to the mooring. First we tried to stop before the visitor mooring because, as we approached, two boats seemed to occupy all the space. Stopping short wasn't such a good idea as, when reversing slowly to the bank, the mud snatched the tiller and got us wedged good and proper. The bow was swinging to the far bank and we effectively ended up blocking the whole canal! With both our combined efforts heaving on the pole as well as a touch of forward on the throttle, we managed to free ourselves. So we almost abandoned the idea of stopping, but on passing the two boats, a space right at the end was available. Now if anyone fancy's mooring on the 48 hour visitor mooring I suggest you don't. There is a concrete ledge that runs the whole length so getting near to the bank is impossible. We did tie up with the both ends of the boat sticking out by a good foot. This in itself wouldn't have been a problem but the idiots speeding past causing us to scrape and rock violently on the concrete side, was. In fact at one point I thought we were going to end up on the ledge itself! When Ian mentioned that the nature reserve was at least a mile away we both agreed that beaching the boat wasn't a good plan and so we moved on. Having endured bouts of sunshine and showers we finally stopped between bridges 74 &75 near Calf Heath on the Staffs and Worc.
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| Another photo of Autherley Stop lock. I loved the autumn colours. |
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| Pendeford Rockin' cutting between bridges 67 & 68 |
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| After the rain........... |
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| Barometer dropping drastically toward Stormy! Oh eck!!! |
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| Lovely rural mooring |
And finally:-
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| Tiny seed caught on a leaf |
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