Prairie Adventure : Swanley Locks to the Shady Oak Pub

Thursday 9th August

We got up early, partly because we'd had an early night as no TV reception or WIFI! We set off about 8.20am. It was a lovely day.
John walked Dex back to get the car and I set off alone. We would meet up at the Hurleston lock flight.

I went past Swanley Marina.

I spotted a heron and it kept taking off and landing as I passed on the boat.

I arrived at Hurleston locks and there were no lock keepers on duty so I waited for John to arrive.

The man in front of us (Alan) was on his own with his dog so John helped him through the locks.

Now it was my turn to go in. There would be boats coming up so we would have to pass each other in the pound between the locks. We needed to set off out of the locks at the same time so we could pass in the middle.

Made it fine into the second lock. Lovely views from here.

We could see the bank of Hurleston reservoir.

The final lock. Once out of here I would be turning left towards Chester. Back on the Shropshire union canal.

Some boats were waiting to come up the flight.

I picked John up and we headed North. The canal felt really wide after the narrow Llangollen and Montgomery canals.

I liked this cute motorised wheelbarrow being used by one of the CRT guys.

We passed the turning onto the Middlewich branch. This is Barbridge junction. Sadly part of the Middlewich is closed for repairs. This is one of the reasons we can't get further North.https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/north-west/middlewich-branch-breach

A boat was turning round but they waved us past.

We passed a day boat which hit us as they were all over the place with their steering. I tried to avoid them but I couldn't do anything in the end. They apologised as they really didn't know how to control it.

Oh dear!

When we arrived at Bunbury staircase locks another boat had just gone in. These are wide locks so we could share and so we drove straight in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunbury,_Cheshire

It's so much more sociable lock sharing as you can chat. Our lock sharers were Steve and Andree, they had a mooring near Blissworth. They were lovely and we were able to lock share all the way to the Shady oak.

I got stuck coming out of this lock as it was quite shallow near the tie up. Another boat was coming into the lock. They didn't slow down and that's why I had to go so near the side and got stuck. Luckily I managed to free myself by putting her in reverse. All good fun!

This boat made me think of our friends Nanna and Tim Teal 😀

At Beeston Iron lock we were unable to share the lock as it was damaged and there was a notice saying only one boat at a time should go through. So our friends carried on through and we would meet up with them later.

There was an amazing whirlpool effect when we opened the paddles. Also the sucking noise was really loud!

Eventually I went in the lock. It has iron sides as it's name indicates.

We were so long going through the iron lock we thought our friends would be long gone but they kindly waited for us at the next lock, Wharton's lock. There was a waterfall cascading through the lock gates!

We went through without any problems. It was a glorious day and I really fancied a beer. Steve said they were stopping just after the lock at the Shady Oak pub. It sounded lovely so we decided to moor there as well. We moored behind their boat.