September Cruise - Day Eighteen

Westport Lake proved to be a quiet enough mooring, in spite of the road noise which I assume comes from the M6. The first boat heading north went past at about 7.15, clearly eager to be first through the tunnel. We set off south at around 8, and were at the top of the Stoke locks an hour later. The second lock down now has a notice on it, warning of leaking walls. We already knew about this problem having been up the locks on our outward journey: a couple of boats had told us they'd had their bedrooms or bathrooms flooded. This is the view of the water gushing out of the wall, seen from above.



At the bottom of the locks we passed The Silver Kroner, and had a quick shouted conversation with the owner, Steve. It's actually not the first of my Canal Boat review boats that we've seen: we passed Fizzical Attraction moored on the Macc on Saturday.

At the Meaford Locks, the sun came out. We also met a boat at every lock, which made life easier. Contractors have started work repairing the collapsed towpath below the second lock. We stopped for lunch near Roger Fuller's yard, then it was down the Stone locks. We stopped for water below the bottom lock, then as we were moving off we heard shouting from the towpath. It was Elsie and Eric from Bendigedig returning from a shopping trip. We moored up just beyond the very full town moorings, then went back to Bendigedig where we were invited on board for a cup of tea. It was nice to hear about Elsie and Eric's travels. We then went into town for some shopping. Quite an early finish for us, but because of our change of route we have plenty of time to get back to base.

12 miles, 14 locks. (218, 172)