Great to See Annie and Peter at Autherley again.

 Sunday 14th August 2022 at Autherley Junction.

We set off fairly early to try to avoid the hottest part of the day. 

When the canals were built, they sometimes had to go through large country estates and, to keep the landowners happy, the builder would often construct very attractive bridges - sometimes on the insistence of the landowners. This is Park Bridge and, like several bridges on this stretch of the canal, it has handsome ballustrades on both sides but we couldn't find any historical reason why these particular bridges were made like this.

On the way down to Autherley, there are three very narrow sections where the canal went through hard rock and so the width was restricted to save construction time. Luckily, we didn't meet anyone coming the other way - it would have been a challenge!

By the Wolverhampton Boat Club, we passed three boats, apparently travelling in convoy. This was the first with a pretty young lady steering and her daughter eating crisps sitting in a baby chair on the roof. Quite idyllic looking and lovely flowers! The other two boats were far more "alternative". We felt they were very much "canal hippies"!  They were all so smiley and happy, which was lovely to see.

We moored up at Autherley Junction just before the Napton hire base.

Next to Autherley Junction is a massive Severn Trent Water treatment plant. The discharge point was just behind us but, judging by the mass of small fish luxuriating in the outflow, and the fact that the water was a lot clearer than the canal water, we didn't think that the outflow was a problem.

In April 2010, we hired our first ever narrowboat, nb "Emma", from Peter and Annie here at Autherley Junction's Napton Narrowboats. We have stayed in touch with them ever since, although the last time we were here with MM was 2016. 

So very nice to see them again and to receive such a warm welcome. It was lovely that, despite the constant customers in their shop, they made time to sit and chat with us for over an hour with tea and biscuits in their garden. It was hiring our first boat from them which clinched our idea of having a boat of our own. So it's all their fault, we always tell them!

Annie and Peter have three dogs, Paddy, Rio and Daisy. All three were very affectionate; Rio and Daisy kept trying to lick our faces - in fact, Rio seemed determined to lick Robin to death!

Autherley has a long history and used to be a working boatyard. In the background, what is now the workshop, used to be stabling for the canal horses.

Despite the heat, we set out for nearby Morrisons for a "few bits" and, looking back towards the wharf, beside the stop lock, is a view which features regularly on picture postcards of the canals.

Opposite the wharf is a large park and we walked through that towards the supermarket making maximum use of shade from the trees as it was getting uncomfortably warm in the sunshine.

In Morrisons, M saw this: "No Maltesers Balls were harmed in the making of this Chocolate Bar". No comment!

When we returned to MM, the barometer had started to fall significantly and there was the beginning of some cloud cover overhead, although there is still no rain forecast for here.

Today: 4 miles, 0 locks and 1.8 hours.

Trip: 360 miles, 223 locks and 195.9 hours.