Back to the Canals

The weirs at Stratford make a good water playground for the swans

Bright and early start today, well not exactly bright but yesterdays rain had gone at least.

We crept down the river past Shakespeare's theatre and towards the lock into the basin.....no one else was stirring....
we had hopes of being first up the locks.

So much for that idea.....as we rose into the basin a boat pulled away from one of the pontoon moorings just ahead of us......still no problem as we were intending to stop at Valley Cruisers after 4 locks and fill up with diesel, buy a new gas bottle and empty the loos.   I had phoned them on Sunday to check that we could do all those things there.

Geoff had an extra assistant at this lock!!

When we reached Valley Cruisers we had our second disappointment of the day...they were shut

A phone call to their Coventry base elicited the information that they were short staffed and the man from Stratford had had to go to Coventry until at least mid afternoon!!

Never mind, onward we go, albeit with much muttering from the skipper!!

After the next lock it really did turn to worms........Boats were queueing up and we discovered that the whole flight had come to a standstill....someone had left a paddle open ( we think yesterday evening) and there was a distinct lack of water.......

3 1/2 hours later we were on the move again......thankfully the weather was OK.   No rain and a pleasant temperature, even a little bit of sunshine.  

By then we had abandoned our goal of Wooton Wawen and stopped at the first suitable mooring place which was at Wilmcote.  

Total distance:3.82 miles 

Elapsed time:8h33m14s  (A much longer day than planned...)

Locks:17

Bridges:15 
Average speed:0.45 mph (2.20 lock/mph)