A Lonely Waterway.

Friday 24th June, 2016 at South Wigston.
It was a lovely morning. This waterway feels very remote but is also very beautiful.

In the far distance from our mooring were the remains of a mediaeval village, only the isolated church half hidden by trees still stands as a silent memorial.

We said farewell to Paul and Tracy, who set off earlier than us as they have to be back at Shardlow by the weekend. Paul fitted out "Norwood" himself over a period of four years - no small achievement. We liked them very much and hope we will meet up again.
As with many of the locks on this stretch, these lock gates were in a poor state of repair and leaking copiously.

Most of the locks had charming names (according to our guide book) but only this one had a name plate.

R had an audience of cows at this lock as he kept MM from drifting across the lock as it filled.

The yellow flag iris are really lovely at the moment. M, who mostly walked between the locks as they are quite close together, was able to admire the yellow flags as well as large fields of wheat, barley and oats.

We moored for the night at South Wigston. We stopped at this point because the vegetation on the towpath side was generally so high that it was impossible to moor but here we found a good mooring. We didn't go through the lock 50 yards in front even though it was set for us with the gates open! After all, we had already done 10 locks today.

Just after we moored up, there was a huge rainstorm and the effect of the evening light on the water was magical.

This was a lovely quiet spot, you would never guess that the busy town of South Wigston was just the other side of the bridge.
Today: 5 miles, 10 locks and 3.6 hours.
Trip: 126 miles, 74 locks and 98.4 hours.