You can’t park that there

Today was going to be a lot more relaxing as I was now within a few hours of my destination at Shebdon wharf. I still had two sets of five locks to negotiate but I quite enjoy the exercise. I still haven’t really mastered the art of mooring alongside the towpath and find that tying the boat up on the centre rope to be a pain in the derriere. This proved true at the first set of  locks the by-wash was playing havoc with the boat, so much so that at one point I had to run back to the boat because it was pulling the mooring pin out of the ground; where are the mushrooms when you need them? Anyway having averted a potential swim I got the lock set and decided to walk up to lock 2 and set that one up ready so I could sail straight in thereby avoiding the hassle of having to moor up. Once I has the paddles open I ran ahead to lock 3 and did the same. At lock 4 another boat came down and left them set ready for me making it a very easy set of locks.

I then cruised through Market Drayton which was very pretty with a nice set of visitor moorings. However as I approached I could see that the cut was blocked by a boat attempting to enter one of said moorings. I initially slowed down and then came to a stop as the boat was not making any headway despite the pilot revving the arse off the engine which was producing climate changing amounts of black smoke from its efforts to propel the boat into what was obviously a very heavily silted mooring berth. Eventually there was just enough room for me to squeeze by so I edged past through the black haze and left the pilot still attempting to get a square peg into a round hole.

I arrived at Tyrley locks to be greeted by a CRT volunteer by the name of Chris who was very nice and extremely helpful. He helped me through all five locks in no time at all. Deciding that I was now well ahead of schedule I pulled over and topped up my water and had a spot of lunch before continuing onto Shebdon. Almost at my destination I came across a fishing competion. It was quite comical to see upwards of 30 anglers rapidly retracting their extremely long fishing rods which nearly reached the far sde of the canal. It appeared I wasn’t very popular with some but most of them exchanged at least a grunt when I greeted them.

Not long after that I arrived at Shebdon wharf and was greeted by Tony from Bethsaida covers. This was now my base of operations for about 3 weeks and would give me time to finish off the jobs that I hadn’t had tme to complete before leaving Elesmere.