Monday 16th July
We had the weekend off as I went to Salisbury races for my friend Becca's hen party. I had a brilliant time and it was great catching up with old friends and meeting some new ones!
On Sunday eve John and I went to the Boat Inn and had the most amazing home made Scotch Eggs - delicious!
So Monday morning came and it was time to move on. Our first job of the day was to fill up with water at the attractive water point.
After this, John went off with Dex to move the car. I would meet him before we arrived at Norbury Junction. This boat definately needed some TLC!
The Countryside here was quite open and I could make good progress as there weren't many moored boats.
Here the canal narrowed and you can see the old stop lock gate on the side.
It was just wide enough for me to pass through.
I managed to get a couple of shots of this heron taking off as I passed by...
The
Further along, I could see John and Dex walking towards me. I couldn't pull over to pick them up here as the sides were concrete and we didn't want to get stuck like last time! So I picked them up at the next set of moorings, just before Norbury Junction.
There were lots of moored boats to pass.
One for you, James Dobinson!
I thought at first that the white duck wasn't real but then it moved!
We approached Norbury Wharf.
Today this is a busy place with lots of hire boats and trip boats. We were stopping here to get fuel and a pump out.
We passed the entrance to what used to be the Shrewsbury Canal, going all the way to Shrewsbury. Sadly this is no longer navigable, the entrance is used for private moorings. It closed in 1944.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbury_Junction
It was quite tricky to turn the boat round to get the pump out opening on the correct side.
The Junction pub was opposite the marina.
The Skipper concentrationg hard!
We had an audience too!
The funniest thing was one of the people at the wharf was Gary who we knew from Pewsey! He used to moor near us but now has a mooring up here! It was good to see him again.
We got pumped out and fuelled up and then had to try and manouever back out again. This was more tricky as the wind was against us but we managed it ok (well John did!)
On our way again. Some of the bridges around here are beautifully constructed with the bricks in a swirl pattern which looks so attractive from underneath.
I liked the name of this boat.
Lots of moored boats on this stretch so we had to go slow.
We passed Gary's mooring and waved goodbye.
I remembered this really unusual bridge 39 from when we were on our honeymoon. It is supposed to be haunted by a strange hairy monkey-like ghost! I had to walk back with Dex to collect the car from here later on and was glad I didn't know it was haunted until afterwards! It was very eerie along this stretch that's for sure!
This whole cutting was quite creepy and had some really old boats moored here. There were also some really old vehicles seemingly abandoned!
Was this an old Rolls?
This man was busy painting his shed roof.
We passed the Anchor pub which is a Freehouse and doesn't seem to have changed a bit in 5 years or 50! It was really old fashioned when we went there 5 years ago on honeymoon and certainly doesn't appear to have had a facelift. It's quite nice to see that some things don't change!
We finally found our mooring spot for the night just outside High Offley.
There was a family of ducks to feed (much to Dex's annoyance!)
Later that evening it poured down with rain! It was quite nice for a change after weeks of dry weather.
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