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Fradley to Calcutt (the return), Aug/Sep 2017


Lily Rose

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Day 7, King's Bromley Marina to King's Orchard Marina, 3.3 hours, 34.4 cumulative.
 
I've started a new thread for the return leg, because I was having trouble adding another "reply" to the existing one.
 
  • We popped into King's Bromley Marina this morning, before starting our homeward bound leg, as this will be on our shortlist if we decide to relocate Lily Rose after 2018.
 
  • We then set off to do the three locks back to the top of the Coventry. The first lock, in particular, was fairly busy with us being 3rd of 3 from our direction and with 3 to come up, so it took a little while.
 
  • Not surprisingly, the area around the pub and cafe at Fradley Junction was much quieter than yesterday with very few gongoozlers and parked cars.
 
  • We then stopped for water just after the swingbridge. The taps there are very slow so we were able to have lunch in the time in took to top up an already more than half full tank. At the next tap was an Anglo Welsh hire boat and they asked me what they were doing wrong as it was so slow to fill up. After they had filled up they locked up the boat and, despite being advised not to by another boater, went off for a 10 minute walk to look round. Five minutes later along came a CRT man who noted down the situation. They then returned and set off just in front of us. The CRT man came back past us a few minutes later and told me they would not be mooring at water points again!
 
  • We passed several historic boats heading away from Alvecote but being a bit busy, and sans camera, I did not note down names or take photos. However, just after we moored up outside King's Orchard marina along came another.
 
  • I knew the boat straight away, having seen it at Alvecote on Monday and remembering it as it was so unusual, (it was nb Elizabeth, a 1936 conversion owned by the current owner for 51 years) so I grabbed my camera and got what I hope will be several good photos. Having no way to transfer them until we get home I am unable to view them on a larger screen or upload them. I might add one or two to this thread, if they are any good, when I get home in just under 2 weeks.

 

  • That will be the end of our summer cruising for 2017. Boo hoo. Still, we should hopefully manage a couple of 4 or 5 day breaks pottering about in the Napton/Braunston/Rugby area before half-term and then 12 days at half-term to go a bit further afield.
 
That's all for today I think.
Edited by Lily Rose
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Here's a piccy of Elizabeth spotted heading north, away from Alvecote, past us outside King's Orchard marina earlier this afternoon. Heavily cropped and poor quality but hopefully I'll have much better ones from my camera as referred to above.

IMG_1646.JPG

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3 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

 

Day 7, King's Bromley Marina to King's Orchard Marina, 3.3 hours, 34.4 cumulative.
 
I've started a new thread for the return leg, because I was having trouble adding another "reply" to the existing one.
 
 
 
 
  • We then stopped for water just after the swingbridge. The taps there are very slow so we were able to have lunch in the time in took to top up an already more than half full tank. At the next tap was an Anglo Welsh hire boat and they asked me what they were doing wrong as it was so slow to fill up. After they had filled up they locked up the boat and, despite being advised not to by another boater, went off for a 10 minute walk to look round. Five minutes later along came a CRT man who noted down the situation. They then returned and set off just in front of us. The CRT man came back past us a few minutes later and told me they would not be mooring at water points again!
 
 
That's all for today I think.

The taps at the swing bridge are slow but they are much faster than the tap at the service point below the lock. This is one of the slowest on the system - they don't have a cafe next to it for nothing, a library might be better!

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6 hours ago, frahkn said:

The taps at the swing bridge are slow but they are much faster than the tap at the service point below the lock. This is one of the slowest on the system - they don't have a cafe next to it for nothing, a library might be better!

Even slower if there is a Hudson on it,  there was one filling up for 3 days a couple of years ago!!

The slowest has to be Just North of Tottenham at Stonebridge lock. A single 15mm pipe supplies the moorings, cafe services building and tap. I once had to fill up in two evening stints as it was only half full after 3 hours the first night.

Edited by matty40s
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Day 8, Kings Orchard Marina to Fazeley Junction 3.3 hours, 37.7 cumulative.
 
 
  • Now that we are doing shorter days for the return journey we don't need to set off quite so early as we had been doing. I use the term loosely, early for us is about 9.45. As it was raining this morning, and the Metcheck forecast was poor for much of the day - overly-pessimistically as it transpired - we decided to delay until the rain eased off a bit. We did consider having a day off but with rain forecast most of the day we could anticipate little battery charging from the panels and if I'm going to run the engine I'd rather be moving even if that means getting wet.

 

  • As we were about to set off the rain suddenly got heavy so we gave it 5 minutes, by which time it was little more than drizzle. Even that didn't last long and we then had virtually no rain for the rest of the day.

 

  • We stopped for lunch at Hopwas and I had a splendid ploughman's lunch. Not at the pub though. I had made a small batch of no-knead sourdough before bed last night, as we were getting a bit low on the supermarket cotton-wool stuff, and left it to rise overnight before baking it this morning. Bloody good it was too, even if I say so myself, and went down a treat with some Shropshire Blue (I love that stuff!), some nice chutney and a little bit of rabbit food. Only a little, mind.

 

  • Before we set off I walked back and had a chat with Kym and Tracey on the boat and butty moored behind us a couple of hundred yards back. I went back because I had noticed, as we had passed by before mooring, that they were in fact the Little Chimney Company. I was very tempted to buy one of their chimneys (to keep as a spare), even though I am already waiting for one I ordered recently from Alex The Shipwright at Aynho, but as it turned out they had just sold the last one in stock until they make the next batch.

 

  • We didn't meet many oncoming boats today with the weather forecast having put some people off I suppose. As is often the way though, almost all those we did meet were at bridges and other narrow points.

 

  • We ended a short day by stopping at about 4pm at the Peel's Wharf visitor moorings at Fazeley Junction. A little later I went to take a few photos of the dark satanic mill round the corner and then went up to the road from the bridge just before it, to have a quick butchers at what might be in the vicinity, and stumbled across a small Tesco (Express I think), which I made use of, and a fish and chip shop next door to it, which I didn't although I may do tomorrow for an early lunch depending what time we leave. For information, these can be found by going up onto the bridge just before the mill, crossing the road then turning left and walking down to the roundabout. Look to your right from there and you can't miss them. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Wiltshire Moonraker said:

You should be passing Wrens-Nest soon at our mooring just past Bradley Green Bridge, give us a wave. :)

Wll do. Probably won't be tomorrow though. I'm not in too much of a hurry to get back above the Atherstone flight as it may be a while before we come back down again.

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5 hours ago, cuthound said:

Give us a wave as you pass DQ.

It is interesting to read someone else's perspective on my local waterways.

 

I agree, I like to read about places we will be going to and also those I know for the same reason.

We've been for a 2.5 hour out and back cruise and are now moored beside the mill recovering from fish and chips. After a cuppa we'll be heading for Glascote and probably on through to Amington VM for the night if it looks ok.

I'll wave as we pass.

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8 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

I agree, I like to read about places we will be going to and also those I know for the same reason.

We've been for a 2.5 hour out and back cruise and are now moored beside the mill recovering from fish and chips. After a cuppa we'll be heading for Glascote and probably on through to Amington VM for the night if it looks ok.

I'll wave as we pass.

Feel free to moor just after DQ, lots of people do, as the towpath traffic is a bit quieter than the on the VM's, but you are a bit closer to the railway line. 

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15 minutes ago, cuthound said:

Feel free to moor just after DQ, lots of people do, as the towpath traffic is a bit quieter than the on the VM's, but you are a bit closer to the railway line. 

I thought you were before the VMs but I now see from my meagre notes that DQ is near bridge 65. We may come by today but if the VMs look ok I may still stop there as we have already had one noisy night near a railway so, for a while anyway, I'm keen to stay away from them.

Thanks for the pointer though and, depending on the VMs, the weather and how I feel we may pass by later today. Or tomorrow morning.

 

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Day 8, Fazeley Junction to just past Amington/Tamworth, 5.0 hours, 42.7 cumulative

 

  • As we now have plenty of time in hand we decided to do a slight detour today, hence the 5 hours taken to get not very far. After passing Peel's Wharf and the Three Tuns we turned right onto the Birmingam and Fazeley canal for a two and a half out and back run down to the winding hole just before Cudworth Bottom Lock. A very pleasant trip it was too in lovely sunshine. Seeing the unusual Drayton Footbridge was worth the trip alone so we stopped briefly to try it out and to take a few photos. I did get a bit concerned as the lock came into view with no sign of the winding hole but it turned out to be nearer the lock than the Nicholson map seemed to suggest and it was also well hidden (on the offside) by bushes and trees until you are almost upon it.

 

  • After returning to Fazeley I nipped up to the Tesco Express nearby and then into the chippie next door - Fazeley Fish Bar if I recall. It has many reviews on Tripadvisor, averaging 4.5 I think. It was excellent. I asked for large cod and chips twice at £4.65 each plus whatever the chips would cost so probably a bit over £6. The fish would have been cooked to order and take about 5 minutes but they asked if I wanted the lunchtime special which I had seen on the menu for £4.10. I had assumed it would have been small but no, it was anything but. You get what looks like two medium sized fish, but is actually four (i.e. two pairs) of mini cod plus chips plus a tub of curry sauce or mushy peas or a sausage. So that's what we had, saving the sausage for a sandwich later. Very good it was too and I really struggled to eat it all. I managed in the end but I needed a bit of a lie down afterwards to recover before the afternoon's work of two locks and and a cruise through Tamworth. It's a hard life!

 

  • After a cup of tea off we set. A bit of rain at first but not too bad and by the time we got to Glascote locks the sun was back out. Our timing there worked well as we were second in line to go up but by the time we went into the first lock there were four more behind us but none coming down. A boat going down, followed by another, arrived just as we were about to leave the 2nd lock.

 

  • We then cruised gently through Tamworth, admiring many of the very nice gardens backing onto the canal from the offside. There were also many rather less nice, where the owners appear to wish the canal was not there, but you get that anywhere I suppose. I am pleased to be able to report that one of the very nice ones belongs to another member of this forum. It was nice to able to have a brief chat with the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Cuthound, as we drifted slowly past in neutral.

 

  • We continued on a little further and moored for the night, on pins banged in behind metal edging (not armco), somewhere between the winding hole east of bridge 63 and Alvecote marina. On the plus side, it gets good sunshine as the canal runs east to west at that point with the towpath on the north side. Not so good is the nearby railway line but it's not as close here as in many places. Also not so good was the random shallow bits we had to try and avoid to get close to the edge. We managed it after about 10 minutes poking about with a pole, marked with our boat's draft at the stern, though and it was well worth it as the sun is now shining straight along the canal on to us as it starts to set which hopefully means that we will be in good sunshine from the other direction in the morning. All in all, not a bad spot and currently no boats ahead of us in the 300 or 400 yards we can see and only one behind us, about 200 yards away on a bit of armco just after a bend heading away from Tamworth.

 

  • I need to stop now in order to enjoy an Adnams in the early evening sunshine.

 

Edit to add, in case it's of any interest to anyone, that the sign at Fazeley Mill Marina said diesel 61p. 

Edited by Lily Rose
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20 minutes ago, matty40s said:

That's a great spot, I stopped there before going to redo the Cuthounds handrails  a couple of years ago......the same week that Zeus arrived !!

I had to do a search to find out what on earth Zeus was, thinking it must be a boat. I now realise that we also met Zeus, albeit briefly and at a distance. We are not dog people (sometimes I wonder that we are allowed on the cut!) but that was certainly a very handsome looking animal. I have always thought that if I were to have a dog (but there's no chance of getting permission) that is the breed I would prefer.

The longer I sit here the more I agree with you that it's a lovely spot, well worth the little bit of extra effort it took to moor up. In between trains it's very peaceful and after a while the occasional train noise gets less noticeable, at least the fast passenger ones. Less so the long slow goods trains so hopefully they won't be too frequent during the night - as they were near Ansty last week. I have no idea if this is the same line but I'm hoping not.

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16 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

 

  • We then cruised gently through Tamworth, admiring many of the very nice gardens backing onto the canal from the offside. There were also many rather less nice, where the owners appear to wish the canal was not there, but you get that anywhere I suppose. I am pleased to be able to report that one of the very nice ones belongs to another member of this forum. It was nice to able to have a brief chat with the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Cuthound, as we drifted slowly past in neutral.

 

Nice to chat to you and your good lady too Lily Rose.

Glad you found a nice place to moor, unfortunately the Coventry,  North Oxford and the GU south of Braunston are never far away from the railway.

Sorry I took a while to get out to you. I was hobbling about on a sore knee after being knocked over by a couple of dogs on that morning walk.

Went to hospital with it this morning, and it turns out I have fractured my left leg so no boating for me in the next few weeks. :unsure:

See my post in the virtual pub.

 

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1 hour ago, cuthound said:

Nice to chat to you and your good lady too Lily Rose.

Glad you found a nice place to moor, unfortunately the Coventry,  North Oxford and the GU south of Braunston are never far away from the railway.

Sorry I took a while to get out to you. I was hobbling about on a sore knee after being knocked over by a couple of dogs on that morning walk.

Went to hospital with it this morning, and it turns out I have fractured my left leg so no boating for me in the next few weeks. :unsure:

See my post in the virtual pub.

 

Sorry to hear that was the outcome. I didn't mention it on here yesterday as I wasn't sure you would want it broadcast. I've seen your linked post now though although I rarely pop into the virtual pub.

I know what you mean about railway proximity. The reason we're trying to keep away as best we can for now is the very noisy night of goods trains we had near Ansty last week.

We're still moored where we stopped last night as it's so nice and so peaceful bar the odd fast train going by but I'm barely noticing them now. Haven't noticed many (if any) freight trains, which is good.

We will probably move after lunch but not far as I want to stay this side of the flight a little while longer.

Hope you recover enough to go boating before too much longer.

Sean

 

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You will be following the railway for some time now, as cuthound says aim for the stretch between locks ten and nine, the railway moves away here, moor in atherstone at the top of the locks then walk back and up the bridge and turn left for town, then left again for supermarkets, or right at the bridge for a small shop and chip shop.

After that i would aim for the straight wider section just before bridge 36A, nice vista over the open fields, mooring near spring haven marina is very peaceful also as no roads for a good distance.,

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Day 10, 0 hours

It was a lovely morning in a lovely quiet spot so we decided to stay here until after lunch. Having had lunch we decided it was so lovely that we'd have another night here, hence 0 hours cruising today. No engine running, just hoping the panels do their thing which is normally no problem on a sunny day (except in winter). The MPPT was indicating absorbtion earlier on, so I was optimistic that Float would appear before long, but it´s become quite cloudy in the last couple of hours so that now seems unlikely unless it brightens up soon. I'll check my battery monitoring device (£1.50 from Ebay!) later, after solar input reaches 0 watts and the fridge is quiet. Hopefully it will settle to 12.7 or more, as usual, otherwise there will be no DVD tonight. Fortunately we still have Netflix downloads to watch on the iPad.

One of the good things about this stretch is that the canal runs east/west, and the towpath is on the north side, so, even though there are some tall trees on the offside, the panels are in sunshine (such as there is) pretty much all day from sunrise to sunset. For example, I woke at 8am this morning to find bright sunshine coming through the front doors from dead ahead. Hopefully tomorrow will start sunny so the panels will start their work early, possibly even before I get up.

We have never been further north than Atherstone before (apart from the top of the Ashby which I think is slightly further) so I´m reluctant to go back up the flight just yet. We'll probably do that Sunday, re-stocking at the supermarket after the 6th lock.

I'm pretty sure we'll be back again before too long though. The Coventry is a very enjoyable canal. Compared to the Oxford there are so many more mooring opportunities and, from my limited experience here, it seems a lot quieter. I like seeing boats go by, and miss them if they don´t, but between Napton and Braunston there are just so many I can't get any reading done due to waving/greeting every couple of minutes. Another thing I´ve noticed today is that hardly anyone has gone by fast. In fact I can't even think of one. They have all noticeably cut their revs on approaching our boat which has been moored with several hundred yards to the next boat in either direction in the almost 24 hours we've been here. You certainly can't say that in the Braunston/Napton area where many boats make no attempt to slow down even a little bit. It doesn't normally cause us a problem though as I usually use a spring line at one end as it does seem to make a difference. I also always use interlocking pins, where pins are required - such as here, ever since the numerous speeders at (narrow and congested) Brownslow caused the pin at one end to pull out last summer whike the boat was moored on the offside and I was over the other side at the picnic area. It had been a while since I ran that fast, having spotted one end of the boat about to hit the boat moored the other side. Looking back, I could have just waited until that was about to happen and then stepped over. Hindsight is not only wonderful, it's also bloody annoying.

Almost finally, hello to adam1uk (for I believe it was he) who mentioned this cruise diary as he passed us on Briar Rose this afternoon. I have since discovered the Briar Rose blog, which mentions Atherstone in yesterday's posting, so that just about confirms that it was the same boat/person. I'll have a proper read of it later.

Finally, thanks Dave Payne - some good tips there which will be taken fully into account tomorrow.

Yippee, the sun has just come out again at last. All the better for the batteries as well as for me sitting on the towpath. I think I'll have to pop in and get an ale to celebrate.

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Day 11, Amington/Alvecote to Atherstone lock 9, 2.7 hours, 45.4 cumul.

 

A pretty late start today, 10.50, by which time the heavy mist had cleared and the sun had come out. I could quite happily have stayed where we were for another day but if we hang around too much longer we will be rushing the last few days of the coming week.

 

We cruised for under 2 hours then stopped for lunch just before the Bradley Green winding hole on a nice mooring. It seemed very quiet today, perhaps summer is over now we are in September. Or perhaps we'll get back onto the Oxford in a few days and realise it was just because of where we were and not due to the date at all.

 

After lunch we stopped briefly at the nearby Elsan, water and rubbish point then ascended the bottom two locks of the 11 lock Atherstone flight before mooring in a nice spot shortly before the bend just before the 3rd lock (lock 9). I had walked along past here from Bradley Green at lunchtime and saw an Ashby Boat on this spot. My intention had been to go round the bend and moor just before the lock landing as there is a gap in the high hedge on the towpath side for the benefit of the solar panels in the morning, albeit the railway line moves a bit closer at that point. However my priority is light on the panels.

 

As it happened, by the time we got here the Ashby boat had gone and I noticed there was a small gap in the hedge here as well, sufficient for both the panels in the morning if I have lined up correctly. At this point the railway is a bit further away, and disappears behind some slightly higher ground, so not very intrusive at all. It is also perfect along here for afternoon sunshine, probably most of the day in fact. A highly recommended mooring spot.

 

Thank you to cuthound and Dave Payne for the mooring location tips.

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Day 12, Atherstone lock 9 to Mancetter Bridge, 3.0 hours, 48.4 cumul.

We left last night´s excellent mooring in the long pound above the bottom two locks at about 10am and did the next four locks before mooring between lock 6 and lock 5 near the road bridge. I went shopping for hopefully the final top-up of this trip at Aldi (other supermarkets are available).

We then had lunch before doing the top 5 locks after which we stopped for the usual stuff at the services by the  winding hole and then, as suggested earlier in this thread, stopped on the straight bit just north of bridge 36 for the night. I tried to moor about half way along, by a gap in the hedge for the benefit of the panels in the morning, but alas to no avail. I couldn't get the front end in and a bit of poking about with the marked pole showed varying depths, including  what felt like occasional lumps of rock or concrete. I gave up and moved along to the armco just before the bend. It will be a bit more shady in the morning but at least we were able to get right in.

It´s another lovely spot which we currently have all to ourselves.
 

Tomorrow, Nuneaton. Lovely.

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Day 13, Mancetter to (almost) Bedworth, 3.1 hours, 51.5 cumul.

After a leisurely breakfast we set off from yet another mooring spot, with no neighbouring boats all the time we were there, that I would have happily stayed on for another night. Still, at least someone else may get a chance to moor there tonight.

We only cruised for an hour before stopping to look round, and buy from, the gift shop and chandlery at Springwood Haven. It brought back memories of hiring from there for a week in 2011 to go up the Ashby (mainly). It looks like a very nice little marina in a beautiful setting. I would seriously consider relocating to it if were located further north.

We lunched just a little further down the canal at yet another lovely spot after which we cruised through Nuneaton. I thought we had made it through without any trouble until we got to footbridge 18A at the southern edge of the town. Unfortunately, passing under the footbridge coincided with a long line of local yoof, probably 15 in all, just starting to walk across. As the rear of the boat emerged I was aware of what was obviously spit rain down in front of me. Fortunately the gobshite seemed to miss me, with most falling harmlessly onto the roof with only the camera and the rear of my phone, that were both sitting on the slide, getting one small hit each. I looked back but couldn't tell which one it was as none of them seemed to be paying much attention and, having only then realised how many of them there were, thought better of saying anything. It could have been a lot worse than a bit of spittle, particularly if I had reacted in any way, so I just kept going. Good riddance Nuneaton were the words that came to mind (and a few I can´t repeat here) as we left the town behind us.

It's been quite busy all day, though nothing like we're used to in our local area, mainly with boats heading north. Quite a few of these were historic boats so I suspect much of the traffic was heading away from Shackerstone festival which I believe finished on Sunday. Having said that, there was a historic boat outside the shop at Springwood Haven when we arrived and, having asked if he´d come from the festival, the owner said they´d come up from the Thames. I don't recall ever noticing a boat like that in Abingdon. No doubt they do go through from time to time, just not when I´m down by the river.

We have moored about half a mile or so before Marston Junction in another nice unshady spot, on a sweeping bend, which I would prefer to avoid, but there is good visibility from either direction and it's plenty wide enough for two boats to pass. I had intended to get a bit nearer to the junction but I could see large trees ahead and didn't want to risk passing a nice open spot for what might be very shady. Again, there are currently (8pm) no other boats in sight. Perhaps we smell! Or maybe we just look a bit rough. 

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9 hours ago, Dave Payne said:

as a Nuneaton lad I can only apologise for the yobs, the bridge you mention is hill top I think, which breads yobs!

be cautious mooring between there and Marston, I had some locals kicking the side of mine there, schools don't go back till Thursday I think!

Oops, didn't read this until this morning. Too late, we stopped short of Marston last night, I thought we were far enough away from Nuneaton to be ok. Fortunately we had a quiet night and will be on our way to Sutton Stop before 10.

Thanks for the tip though. I'll remember that for next time, whenever that might be. It's a shame, I really liked the stretch from Springwood Haven to Atherstone, just a shame you have to go through Nuneaton to get there.

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