Hockley Heath, Stratford-on-Avon – Friday 29 June 2012
Started out at 09:00 – brilliant sunshine with a few white fluffy clouds, a couple of miles and I was at the Lapworth Link, where it started raining heavily.  Lapworth was where the Stratford-on-Avon Canal company joined their canal to what would eventually become the Grand Union to link in with the routes to Birmingham, London and the Potteries.  This is a ‘narrow’ canal as the locks are only 7ft wide, and from the junction there are 15 in just one mile with the remaining 4 spread over another mile!  After I had managed all the locks the sun has come out again in between the clouds but it is not raining.  There are also 2 lift bridges, hydraulically operated so not difficult, except …. the winding mechanism is not on the towpath side of the canal.  This means that a ‘single-hander’ has to devise some means of tying the boat on the towpath, crossing the bridge and winding it up then …. crossing the canal to get back to the boat.  An interesting problem!  At the second one a couple of dog-walkers helped by pulling the boat under the bridge after I had wound it up.  At Swallow Cruisers boatyard (bridge 27) I saw ‘Meg’ (Braidbar number 55) which was out of the water.  She looks good.  I’ve now moored for the week-end and will go exploring tomorrow.