Our boating friends Graham and Betty, who have sold their boat, came for afternoon tea+cake on the towpath with us at Barbridge. They were between viewings of potential houses to buy. It was lovely to see them, although Grahams legs were covered in bites which looked like measles.
We were up with the sparrows to see a misty haze hovering over the water. So we were ready to set off after breakfast just after half past six. The locks were now wide-beam (double width) and our first one was Bunbury Staircase. So called because there are two locks, only separated by one set of gates. The bottom lock has to be empty before entering, then we dropped down the two, a total of 15’ 7 ins. The next lock had a delightful little round building beside it.
Beeston Stone Lock also had one of these little rotundas which was not in such good condition and leaning somewhat. The following lock was an iron sided one built because of the sandy nature of the land around it. There were deer to be seen on the hill to the right of the sign here.
Most of the journey was very cool and pleasant with only a couple of other boats on the move. I liked this sweet little cottage looking down on us with it’s sleepy windows poking out of the thatch. The railway runs close to Beeston Castle Wharf and we could just see the Beeston and Tarporley signal box peeping over the hedge. We cruised on to moor up just past Tatenhall Marina in time for lunch, luvly jubbly! Two men were mowing and strimming the towpath and looked just about to melt in their safety gear, so we plied them with drinks. They said they covered nine miles a day altogether and the towpaths here were extra wide too.
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