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I left Armitage and intended to stop at Rugeley to get shopping. I passed by this rather imposing factory building right next to the canal on the way out of Armitage. I have no idea what factory it is as there were no markings or signs.

The brick bridge below I thought was unusual as most of them are quite low, hump back bridge affairs, but this was really high.

After passing under this, after 10 minutes or so, I took sight of a pub called The Plum Pudding and on the other side of the road, sprawled up the hill, was one of the largest park home complexes, I have ever seen. I wonder where their local is?

Shortly after this, I had to negotiate a section of canal where there used to be a tunnel but they ripped the lid off, so is now just a narrow cutting. As there is a slight bend, the sign said to send a crew member ahead to check for oncoming boats. Unfortunately, being a single hander, I can’t split myself in two, so I just had to go for it. If I needed to reverse, then so be it.

There was quite a long road bridge over the top but once I got so far, I could see around the slight bend where there was another boat waiting for me to come out. That was lucky! I informed him that there were no other boats following me, as far as I knew.

Here’s a view back from whence I came.

On cruising in to Rugeley, I was on the lookout for the six giant cooling towers of the power station, but I could not seem to locate them. I thought they must be there as they would be difficult to miss and I know pilots use them as reference points. After I stopped I discovered that, unknown to me, they were demolished back in 1981. I would have loved to have seen one of my life’s heros, Fred Dibnah (R.I.P.) to have tackled those monstrosities.

I eventually arrived at the bridge where I needed to moor at to be closest to either the Tesco or Morrisons supermarkets. I was spoilt for choice here, so I chose to visit the latter for a change and after 30 minutes or so, I returned to the boat fully loaded with large rucksack and two large sturdy reusable bags. It wasn’t that far away but it certainly didn’t stop the feeling that my arms wanted to fall off. I neglected to take any photos of my mooring as there was just a tall hedgerow and a tall garden hedge on the towpath side. I did however, take a photo of me leaving and the bridge with number, should I need to stop on the way back. Clickety click, 66.

It was quite a scenic trip out of the centre with some houses lucky enough to have gardens backing on to the canal, where some had boats moored.

I came across this boat, River Run named after the castle from Game of Thrones. I have seen this boat a few times on the Grand Union Canal south of Leighton Buzzard. There are two or three other similarly themed boats as well, all with GoT place names.

Hello, here we go again, more canalside frolicking mannequins.

We now come to the end of Rugeley where we have to negotiate a ninety degree right turn with a lovely weeping willow on the corner.

And on rounding the bend, I come across this family of Canada Geese. I don’t normally praise these much as they can be extremely noisy especially in the small hours. However, these looked lovely and I couldn’t resist getting a photo.

And then we pass over the river Trent on a very narrow aquaduct, just a little wider than my boat.

Oh look a few sheep taking shelter under the trees. Sensible.

I think the next couple of photos are great as they show a rather dramatic sky. The second perhaps not so dramatic, but the black sheep in the shot really was the blackest sheep I have ever seen. I couldn’t zoom in very much with the phone and steer the boat as well.

Oh, look who’s still following us… The River Trent…

That’s all folks for this one.

I left the comfort and isolation of the marina and turned left, once again heading to the north.

These Weeping Willow trees do look rather nice but they can be a bit of a nuisance when they get too long. This section had quite a few of these trees which can make navigating a little hazardous at times as you just cannot see where you are going for a short distance.

After a very short distance of around 3 kilometres from the marina I pulled in to moor up for the night. I didn’t leave the marina until around midday anyway.

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This marina is part of the Aquavista group to which my own marina belongs. At the moment they have a scheme called Explore34, whereby I am allowed to spend up to 34 days a year in another Aquavista marina, free of charge.

So, after leaving Hopwas, I had a bit of distance to cover, lots of it rather pretty, like this tree lined avenue with the stone facing of the towpath. This went on for quite some distance.

The prettiness just kept giving…

Not far ahead is Fradley Junction, which is where the Coventry Canal, which I am currently on, joins the Trent & Mersey Canal. I turned left here and went up two locks. The most unfortunate thing is, I failed to take any photos of this rather important section.

After a short distance, I caught site of of some HS2 works gouging across the face of the countryside. According to the map. this will eventually be a bridge over the canal.

A short distance later, I turned into Kings Bromley Marina.

After meeting with the staff in the office, I was shown to my berth for the duration of my stay.

This was going to give me some time to recharge my batteries as I was feeling quite fatigued. It also gave me time to check the boat over after recent inverter upgrade. I never left the boat once while I was there and spent most of my time resting.

After my shortened visit to Fazeley, I decided to head towards Kings Bromley Marina. This marina is part of the Aquavista group to which my own marina belongs. At the moment they have a scheme called Explore34, whereby I am allowed to spend up to 34 days a year in another Aquavista marina.

However, after half an hour or so, I stumbled across this village called Hopwas. I’d heard about this place and was told that moorings here are scarce as it is a popular place to stop. There’s actually nothing here really apart from two pubs, The Red Lion and The Tame Otter.

I still felt dirty after being robbed so I only cruised for this relatively short distance of a few kilometres.

Great names on some of these bridges. On this canal, bridges are normally named but on most canals, they are just numbered.

Lovely scenery around here too…

I was surprised to find plenty of moorings so I took my pick. As usual, everyone seems to follow me and moor up all around me. This happens wherever I go. It’s a little annoying sometimes especially when I just want some peace and quiet.

Above is where I moored. I half expected someone to squeeze in to the spot in between me and the bridge but I think I remember there was only one mooring ring. Anyone mooring there would have been stupid anyway as they would have been blocking half of the bridge.

The first evening I decided to try out one of the pubs and someone recommended The Red Lion for the food, so I went in there and was pleasantly suprised at how friendly it was. One of the barmen sorted me out with a table as most were reserved, which meant to me that it has to be good in here. He took my order and I decided to try a pale ale which I had never had before.

I should have covered this the other way around but in my mind, the beer was the main course and the meal was a side order.

I chose to have a cottage pie and wow that was fantastic too. I was really liking the Red Lion.

The chips were at no extra cost as the barman had a senior moment and thought that the cottage pie did come with chips, despite it being topped with mashed potato.

The beer garden was exceptional and had a lot of play areas for kids. It backed on to the canal too, however, I couldn’t quite make out my boat as it was just around the corner to the right.

So, well done to all the staff at the Red Lion. I had an absolutely top notch experience.

 

The only problem was that despite spending two nights there, I never got to try out the The Tame Otter. I just wanted to stay in on the second night, but it did seem fairly popular, so maybe I’ll pop in on the way back.

The journey to Fazeley Junction was relatively uneventful with miles of tree and hedge lined canal, so I couldn’t see much. Then there came what seemed like miles and miles of gardens that backed on to the canal. Amongst the the best of the views was this skyling horse.

On the way to the junction, I had noticed these windows with iron bars on the sides of bridges. I have never seen these before and wondered if they were used to store canal maintenance items or perhaps some sort of cell in to which unruly boaters were put to cool off. If anyone knows, please leave a comment below.

The most pleasant event for me was the aquaduct over the River Thame as shown in the following two photos.

From what other boaters were saying the moorings here at Fazeley Junction were chock-a-block, but on arrival, it was surprisingly devoid of other boats. The moral here is to take what other people say with a pinch of salt. It’s not the first time that a misinformation event such as this has happened. Sometimes I wonder if it was actually disinformation.

Here we have a boat name that the equine fraternity would appreciate. I do love horses and this just happens to be one of my favourite breeds which originate from the Huisne river valley in western France, which was part of the former Perche province. My sister is very much a ‘horsey’ person and I know she loves these too.

The image below shows the location where I was moored, which you wouldn’t think too bad, but there was a noisy saw mill behind the trees on the left, and a continuously barking dog next door. I have made a note to myself not to moor here again overnight, although other boaters have said it is fine. Here we go again taking advice from other people.

I moored here at Fazely Junction primarily to pop to the post office just down the road where I collected a couple of Amazon items I had ordered. The junction itself is quite historical, surrounded by buildings of a bygone age of canals.

I found this quite interesting, a bug hotel. I couldn’t actually see anything crawling around but I suspect they were in hiding.

On that fateful morning of grand theft trolley, I left Fazeley Junction behind with a sense of mixed feelings.

After a couple of days in Atherstone, it was time to move on. I untied the boat and headed for the top lock of the Atherstone Locks, eleven in all. Just before them however, Is the Elsan, water and rubish disposal. I managed to do all except for the Elsan, which was out of order. All this is located on the right of the photo below. While I was waiting for the water to fill, one of the volunteer lock keepers arrived and I chatted to him for a short while until the tank was full. Steve, I think his name was. Terrible for names, me.

 

Here’s the top lock cottage with Steve setting off to operate the lower gate paddles while I stayed on the boat. He kindly assisted me on the first five locks down the flight as this is what they do when they have more than two ‘volly lockys’ on duty, the other two remaining at the top lock. These people don’t get paid and they do this for the love of canals and also for exercise.

 

Something I would never do and that is to step across the gap to open the other gate. I’ve thought about it and looked, and then, naaah!! Too dangerous for me. One false step and I fall and get wet or possibly hit the boat on the way down. Ouch…

 

A quick look behind as apparently I’m being followed by a classic work boat. No sign yet…

Below is the A5 bridge at Atherstone which is just after where Steve left me and I was on my own for the rest of the 6 locks in the flight. I was going to stop here and let the classic boat past me as they were mob-handed and catching me up.

 

However, there was a boat coming towards me who said that the lock should be in my favour as he had just come out of it. He had a lovely wee doggie that was running up and down the roof…

 

The only problem was that when I was nearing the lock, a hire boat had arrived at the bottom of it and sent a couple of their crew up to empty the lock for themselves without looking to see if any other boat was about to descend, meaning me. This kind of thing is normally frowned upon due to wastage of water. However, as they were hire boaters, they probably hadn’t even been told about these things before being sent off on their way in control, or not,  of a 15 ton, waterbound, 4mph missile.

Anyway, I’m not going to rant on about it but after another hour or so, and letting the classic boat pass me by, I completed the Atherstone flight and was actually feeling quite knackered. So I decided to pull over and moor up at the next nice spot.

 

Some people have all the money…

 

On the way was this unusual railway bridge. Unusual in that they are normally very wide and don’t constrict the canal as it passes under.

 

And, just around the corner I spotted this lovely spot just under a nice large oak tree. Wonderful.

I even had the company of a couple of geese of the more unusual variety and they were reasonably quite compared to Canada geese.

There was a smell around here which I thought may have been something I had trodden in, but after a short while I looked back down towards the railway line and spotted a sewerage farm. Great. It actually wasn’t that bad really as I got used to it and was far better when I closed the boat doors.

I left Springwood Haven Marina, a happy chappy despite parting with a relatively large sum of money, although some of the funds were donated by the tax man by way of a rebate. However, now I can relax in the knowledge that my new inverter can cope with almost everything I throw at it.

I must say, this North Coventry can is really green and leafy. It’s a pleasure to navigate and it seems that every bend reveals another satisfying vista of pleasantness.

Some of this vegetation can be quite a hinderance and nuisance as in some places it reaches almost all the way across the canal and sometimes there is just enough width for one boat. On several occasions I’ve had to negotiate a boat coming the other way but things were always cordial and polite.

This was quite an interesting section of canal, where I passed by quite large CRT (Canal & River Trust) depot, an old work boat just moored on the offside and an Alpaca farm. By the way, if you didn’t know, it is only permitted that you moor on the side of the towpath. Mooring on the offside is normally prohibited and any boats that are moored there belong to private moorings. It has been known for boats that do moor on the offside, next to a field of cows or crops, have been paid a visit by the land owner or farmer demanding a fee to moor. It’s normally only ten or twenty quid but they have also been known to kick you off their land. 

The Alpacas were a delight to see and I adore their cute faces. The only trouble is, they were quite distant and my view was obstructed by buildings, fences and the like. Next time I pass, I’ll get my Canon camera and telephoto lens on the case.

I eventually arrive at Atherstone and to my surprise, I had a choice of moorings. It is normally chock a block as it is a very popular place with a decent market town high street only a couple of hundred metres away.

I did have some video footage from my phone of me negotiating a bridge, however, I have removed it from the blog as I still haven’t figured out how to place these videos properly yet. There is something not quite right somewhere.

There was a nice cafe called “The Old Bakery Cafe” and I called in here for breakfast. It was really nice but I much prefer my regular cafe “Fat Birds” in Leamington Spa. The prices weren’t bad though, I’ll give them that and the service was efficient and cheerful. I had to ask one of the waitresses to open a sachet of brown sauce as I wasn’t able to so without making a complete mess. The sauce just ended up all over my hand and fingers rather than on my breakfast.

Here’s one view of the high street. It wasn’t too busy with traffic or people but I suspect that would be different on a weekend. I visited the hardware shop on the right of the photo and my word, what a place. I had been told about this shop and believe me, it is a true Aladdins cave of items. They probably have anything that you do want and everything that you don’t want. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, just ask and the friendly staff come and help. Unbelievable. 

I spared you a lot of the visual state of the canal when I passed through Nuneaton, although I did mention it in the last post. However here is one photo of a large piece of polystyrene, floating aimlessly.

I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of items, such as plastic bottles, traffic cones, plastic bags, bin bags containing rubbish, tyres, pieces of carpet and so on. It’s disgusting but it is the same for most large built-up areas and cities. I have also seen piles of rubbish cascading down the embankment from a footpath higher up, building up, down the bank towards the canal. I’m sure there will be an avalanche soon.

Nuneaton is not the worst I am sure, but a friend said that the council have done nothing to promote the canal and improve things. If done properly, canals can attract people to developments of shops, restaurants and such like. Places such as Stratford on Avon and Little Venice in London. But to be honest, I’m not sure Nuneaton is that kind of place at the moment.

Here’s something to take your mind off that terrible trash…

After passing through Nuneaton, I decided to call in to Springwood Haven marina for water, rubbish disposal and to use the elsan. I’ll show you what the elsan is in another post as I don’t have any resources to show you.

I also wanted to upgrade my inverter charger as the one I have is not man enough to handle running the washing washine, microwave or the toaster singularly, let alone together. To be honest, I could do without the microwave and just use the cooker instead but it is used solely out of convenience. Most of the time, the washing machine is fine except when it is heating the water it will trip the inverter, even on a 30 degree wash. The toaster does work but you normally end up with toast that is not done enough and you have to put it through again. Meanwhile the inverter is straining… To overcome the inverter shortcomings, I have to run the engine with a little increase in revs. The biggie leisure alternator I have does provide quite a lot of extra current to run these things. However, as I have mentioned before, it is a pain to go and do this, especially when it is tipping down outside, or there is a bear sitting where I need to get to!

So fortunately, when I went in to the office, Steve and Dave from the marina had a couple of days blank and they fitted me in the next day. They gave me a rough quote for the replacement inverter and labour and although it was quite expensive, it needed to be done to make my life on board easier.

 

Springwood Haven Marina, is, to me, something like a little Teletubbies valley with a canal and a marina at the bottom of it. I did have quite a few photos of the place which shows its similarity, but I can’t seem to find them now despite an extension search, apart from one…

There is a hill behind me going up and, also to the left and right. The place is surprisingly green…

 

So here begins the replacement of my inverter. This shows my electrics cupboard emptied out apart from the items on the top right which are a couple of busbars, a shunt and the right hand one is the galvanic isolator. That item attempts to prevent corrosion of the hull of the boat and it is designed to prevent electrolytic corrosion. It blocks low voltage DC currents that enter the boat via the shore power earth wire. These currents can cause corrosion to the boat’s underwater metals, like the hull, propeller, propshaft etc.

Here is my old inverter sitting on my worktop ready for sale on ebay, complete with cables and fittings.

 

This was on day two of the transformation, and Steve had to make a new back board for the cupboard, which looks fantastic. The wiring is a huge improvement to what it was. Again, I can’t find my photos of what it was before. Quite remiss of me not to fully capture all the different stages. I promise to do better in the future!

 

And here is the completed cupbpoard, almost. I still have to fit the trims around the edges yet but it should look very good when done. You can see on the top there my Venus GX which I made myself out of a Raspberry Pie, with the 7 inch display. It does pretty much the same job as a Victron Cerbo GX, which costs around £550. I enjoyed making it and it does exactly what I want it to do. It shows me Tallulah’s current electrical status, and includes such details from the batteries and solar panels etc.

 

Here’s the underside of the top of the cupboard, where I drilled a couple of big holes for the fans. I then screwed the fans on, soldered the connectors to the small board you see, et voila!! It just needed the connection of the ends you see to the ends in the cupboard.

This whole idea came about as the old inverter used to get very hot in the cupboard and sometimes I used to have a fan directed in there to try and cool things down. This new inverter is bigger and produces more heat, although it has a very good cooling system itself, I thought I would add these fans to try and extract more heat from the cupboard. They will only turn on when the inverters fans kick in. Clever, huh?

Needless to say but these electrical items should not have been installed in such a small cupbord in the first place. I think it was done either out of convenience or ignorance by a previous owner. I could have paid for the construction of a real good proper job but that would have taken longer and also cost a small fortune on top of the small fortune I have already paid.

Well, I think that covers everything for a few days. The next installment coming soon to an internet near you!!

I set off this fine Tueday morning, sun shining but with a light breeze. I only had a short distance to go before Hawkesbury Junction. However, I neglected to take any photos of the Sutton Stop lock and the junction. That is so incredibly remiss of me as this place is one of the highlights of the canals, what with the Greyhound pub and the incredibly tight 180 degree turn, not to mention the historic buildings.

But before I got there, I had to pass by the splendour of this huge substation. Oh well, they have to put them somewhere I suppose, otherwise we’d be complaining about no electricity.

Wow, look at the lines on those pylons!!

After this I passed into more acceptable scenery of trees and fields which were bordering on Bedworth. Shortly I was passing some of the more colourful and strangely entertaining gardens that border the canal.

The Stig was part of the boatyard come scrapyard at a place they call Charity Dock. To me, it’s a complete eyesore and it is quite huge, with a car scrapyard behind it.

Huge relief, as I pass into the countryside again. There are some long straight sections of canal here, not the usual meandering type normally associated with canals.

I see you!! He flew down in front of my boat and tried to hide. He thinks that if he can’t see you, you can’t see him! Difficult to take this photo as I was negotiating a bridge at he same time.

A relic of bygone times. Before the railways came along, telegraph poles used to follow canals. This is the only one that I have ever seen. Although there is another special one that I hope to show you sometime on the Shropshire Union Canal.

I love this tree in the middle of nowhere, all on it’s lonesome. This is just coming up to Springwood Haven Marina, which is near where I am moored at the moment.

I am going to have some work done on my boat for the next couple of days and therefor I won’t be uploading any content until after it is completed.

This Monday morning looked great. Nice weather and I felt fresh after what I thought was a good night’s sleep. I untied the boat and set off round the corner and under the road bridge. I decided to pull in at the water point just ahead on the left, just past some moored boats.

I found that I couldn’t get in close as there appeared to be a ledge or rock or something under the water. Then all of a sudden, I heard this awful noise and I lost all propulsion. I then realised that I must have something wrapped around my propeller. Great, I thought. Pretty much every boaters worst nightmare to have to go in to the weed hatch and untangle whatever is down there.

After 30 minutes of wrestling with fabric, metal and weeds, I decided, I needed to call RCR (River Canal Rescue) which is our equivalent of the AA or RAC.

The biggest problem I had was trying to cut the fabric and whatever else was down there. I had a couple of knives which I attempted to cut through the mess but they just weren’t sharp enough. I’m bad enough as it is with knives in the kitchen, so using a knife down in the weed hatch where you just can’t see what you’re doing is a bit dodgy, to say the least. Everything is done by touch and feel and is quite tricky.

Anyway, Steve turned up after a couple of hours and after around 30 minutes, I was in action again.

This is the total crud that was wrapped around my prop, retrieved by Steve. Good man. The metalwork appears to be the remains of a pram or pushchair sun canopy. Nightmare…

That size 9 boot is mine, and I’m wearing it!

 

The above photo was the final straw to the day. The rain was originally quite light which I can quite easily tolerate but this was just a deluge and I’d had enough. I moored up at the next available opportunity.

Unbelievably, today, just to recap, I went just a total of 200 metres before the prop got clobbered. In total, I went 2 miles before stopping for the day, thoroughly dejected, and soaking wet.