Thursday 11th October 2018 near Rugeley.
We made an early start from Norfolk as it was a three hour drive back to the marina and MM. However, we couldn't resist a quick side trip to see The Wash close up...
...not to dabble our feet in the water, but M wanted to reconnoître The Wash itself - as it is possble to navigate across it (in convoy and with a pilot). It can't be done in a single tide, so it means spending a night aground in the middle on a mud flat, waiting for the tide to come back in! It certainly looked challenging under a threatening storm cloud. The Severn Estuary was brilliant this summer, said R, but The Wash may be a step too far? "Never!" replied M "Piece of cake!"
We arrived back at MM at midday and set off as soon as we had filled up with water and diesel.
The weather had changed, it was much cooler and cloudier but at least the rain held off.
Fradley Junction was only a couple of miles away, although the shop there only opens at weekends at this time of year so M was denied acquiring a "few bits".
A welcome sight on the first of the Fradley locks was a C&RT volunteer, laughingly described by his colleagues as "Young Paul" - he was in his sixties!
Wood End lock is one of our favourites, very isolated but with a lovely cottage next to it.
Then we were off on the long pound through Armitage and Rugeley. M walked much of the way on the towpath to get some exercise.
Recently, we have often see fields of a short, green, leafy crop that we couldn't identify from a distance. M walked into this field and saw that it was spring cabbage.
It was a lovely afternoon and we even had some sunshine to illuminate one of the mile markers, informing us that we still had another 18 miles to go to get to Aston Marina.
M was fascinated by the variety of fungi growing on the towpath. Definitely not for eating!
At one point, a fallen tree by the towpath had been made into a bench seat. Lovely!
Close to this spot in the spring two years ago, M had risen before dawn and gone outside to listen to the dawn chorus, which, she said, was brilliant. She was kind enough to record some of it so that R could listen to it when he (finally!) got up!
Armitage is the site of the huge factory that manufactures sanitary ware of that name. Despite its very run-down appearance, it is still in full production. Previously we have seen huge piles of rejected and broken toilets, but they seem to have relocated the pile out of view - shame, as we always used to laugh at the sight!
Just past the factory is Armitage "tunnel", cut through a layer of sandstone rock. The roof was eventually removed as it became unstable - so now it is just a long narrow cutting.
The weather was truly kind to us this afternoon and the forecast rain held off until we had moored up in the same spot where we moored with Mel and Peter on nb "Inkling" exactly one year ago tonight. Last year, we stopped because it was raining hard and we were getting very wet. This year, torrential rain started just after we moored up - but it didn't last long and we were treated to a lovely sunset.
Today: 13 miles, 3 locks and 5.8 hours.
Trip: 414 miles,248 locks and 255.4 hours.
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