Friday 19th June to Monday 22nd June, 2015 in Market Drayton.
Friday dawned dry but
VERY cool. We treated ourselves to breakfast in the tea room at Norbury Junction, which was doing a roaring trade with boaters, workmen and grockles alike.
This is a working wharf with full facilities. It was once the junction of the Shroppie with the canal that went down to Shrewsbury; unfortunately, only the first couple of hundred yards or so survive. It would be a lovely waterway to restore, but sadly there seems to be no movement towards restoration.
We wrapped up well to continue our journey. M is wearing two fleeces, a hat, scarf and leggings. Well, this
IS June in England after all! After breakfast, we set off with a fairly long day ahead to get to Market Drayton.
It's lovely cruising on the Shroppie, the waterway constantly changes
from "rockings" to "valleys" (the old boatmen's names for the deep
cuttings and high embankments respectively). These are a masterpiece of
sheer hard slog - millions of tons of rock and earth being dug out with
pick and shovel to make the cuttings, some 80 feet deep, and then carted
by barrow and cart to make high embankments. Those navvies certainly
earned their money!
In some places in the deep cuttings, the towpath is muddy, overgrown, narrow and almost impassable partly because the sun never gets to the bottom of the cutting. The guide book says that anyone who attempts to walk the Woodseaves Cutting towpath should get a Certificate - of Insanity!!
It was very pleasing to see that some serious remedial work had been carried out over the winter on one section, but there was still a lot more to do! ("Before" above and "After" below).
On the way, we passed a narrow boat that appeared to have got lost on the far side of the field. We also saw it last year and nothing much seems to have been done to it in the meantime.
The flight of five locks at Tyrley is a pretty spot and we came down through them quickly helping, and being helped by, a number of boats going the other way. So we had a "good road", as the old boatmen would have called it.
At the bottom of the locks, we passed some trees growing out of the rock sides, which had resulted in a curious effect - tree roots or a nest of snakes?
We found a good mooring on the outskirts of Market Drayton and walked in to the town to visit the "Buttercross" tea shop for afternoon tea.
MM looked pretty in the evening sun.
On Saturday morning, we moved into the centre of town and moored up at Tom's Moorings, where we had arranged to leave MM for two nights while we travelled back to Reigate as M was singing with the Reigate Grammar School Cantata Choir on Sunday. We had left the car at Aston Marina, so had to make our way there on public transport, starting with waiting for the bus in the rain!
Recently the stern gland on MM has started to leak a bit and R had run out of the waterproof grease needed to re-pack it. Luckily, by researching the internet, he found some at DB Marine on the Thames. They closed at midday on Saturday but were kind enough to leave it under a bush next to the gate so that we could pick it up on our way past.
The concert on Sunday night at Dorking Halls of the Verdi Requiem was a brilliant success and R was so proud of M, all the choir and the orchestra (mainly current and ex RGS students). They all excelled themselves.
Monday saw us back on buses and trains to get back to Market Drayton where R re-packed the stern gland with the new grease.
Then we moved MM off Tom's moorings (which have to be paid for) to the other side of the canal (which is free). So now MM is moored up in the sunshine and dinner calls.
Five years ago, one of the three storey houses opposite MM was for sale (with its own mooring) and we seriously considered buying it. We even drove up from Reigate to view at it, but the estate agent proved to be useless and hadn't even bothered to contact the owner, so nothing came of it and the trip was for nothing!
On Friday: 11 miles, 5 locks and 4.7 hours.
Trip: 56 miles, 22 locks and 28.0 hours.
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