Prairie Adventure : High Offley to Market Drayton

Tuesday 17th July

We set off about 10.30am. Well I set off and John took Dex in the car to Tyrley locks and started walking back to meet me.

Ahead I could see this building jutting out across the canal, it looked like it was suspended in mid air!

It turned out to be Knighton Wharf and there was an old factory here which used to produce chocolate crumb. The goods were carried to and from Bourneville by narrowboat on the Worcester and Birmingham canal. http://knightonfoods.com/who-we-are

There were lots of bridges on this route to pass under. Hopefully none were haunted!

Another example of the twisted stonework on this bridge.

This bridge was being repaired and I hoped it wouldn't collapse on me as I passed underneath!

The countyside started opening up again thankfully, out of the dark and gloomy cuttings.

This family of swans were clearly used to being fed at this boat and wouldn't leave them alone!

Back into another dark cutting, this one is called Woodseaves Cutting. It was so narrow in places there was a sign saying to keep to 2mph.

Another spectacular bridge to go through.

How cute is this boat!

We arrived at the start of Tyrley locks. The first lock was really beautiful.

This building was the old Tyrley Wharf.

Another boat was coming up so we could leave our gates open. Dex and I walked on to the next lock.

Following the boat was the man on his bike whom we had seen at Foxton locks weeks ago!

Dex made a friend, a black lab called Winston. His owner told me that Winston was used to living on board their boat and they had never had any problems with him until the other day when for some crazy reason he decided to jump the lock! He only made it with his front paws and his owner had to frantically grab him and pull him to safety. She said that there were some workmen on her side of the lock and so her only explanation was he had wanted to reach her in a hurry. Hopefully he won't ever try that again!

Again we were lucky as another boat was coming up. I could get used to this!

At this next lock I scraped my thumb when trying to wind up the paddle. They had not left enough space between the lock gate and the winder to fit the windlass (and my hand) comfortably. Ouch it hurt!!

This friendly man helped me with the gate. He was on a boat coming up. Yes another boat coming up, hurray!

When we got to the last lock there was no-one around and so we took the opportunity to replace the ladder (we had to use it last night as a boarding plank) and John also replaced one of the fenders which had got ripped off earlier on a piece of metal jutting out of one of the gates. Luckily we now had some spares!

John had a real problem when he came out of the lock. There was a strong flow of water from the left which pushed him over to the right and the boat got jammed under the gap in the rock. John thought for a moment the boat was going to tip over. After a lot of struggling with the throttle on full power he managed to dislodge it- phew!