Friday 30 Sep 2011

Friday 30 Sep 2011

On the Coventry Canal near Mancetter, I have decided to have a lazy day after yesterday – started out at 09:15 with a slight haze on the water, but already warm in the sunshine.  Only a few boats out so I have been surveying and recording (for future journeys) where the steel piling is.  I find this easy to moor up to as there is no hammering of spikes into the towpath.  Passed Valley Cruises base, lots of cream coloured boats, At Hartshill a BW working boat was reversing out just after a bridge, then through Nuneaton  passing the Starline base nothing till bridge 16 which looks like an old World War 2 Bailey Bridge, there is lots of mud spillage either side of the bridge from a quarry.  Next sight was of Charity Dock in Bedworth.  The Nicholson guide says it’s a boatyard but looks more like a scrapyard to me with boats, cars and all sorts just piled up around the crane.  The last mooring has a ‘garden’ filled with life-size shop manikins in all sorts of poses.  At Bridge 14 there is a sign saying the ‘Navigation’ pub is just past the bridge – it is, but totally derelict including some roof tiles having been taken away.  Just before the junction with the Upper Oxford canal I passed “Naiad” another Braidbar.  At Hawkesbury Junction you do a U-turn under a bridge in full view of all the gongoozlers (spectators) sitting supping pints at the Greyhound pub.  That was managed without having to revert to the bow-thruster then into the ‘stop-lock’ which only has a lift of about 1 foot.  My initial plan was to stop in Ansty but not possible so on to Bridge 19 near a golf course where the sounds of civilisation intrude – the hum of the M6 motorway, the rumble of goods trains and the roar of the high speed trains zooming past.