Trapped in Harecastle Tunnel.

 Thursday 19th September 2024 in Stoke-on-Trent.

The weather is beautiful at the moment; we are enjoying a lovely Indian Summer with sunshine and clear blue skies. Long may it last!

We set off through the last lock before the Harecastle Tunnel. As we went through the lock, M fell into conversation with a couple out walking with their young grandson, Max, and she offered them a lift to the mouth of the tunnel. Gandma and Max accepted while Grandad decided to walk. They used to have their own narrowboat and were delighted that Max would experience what all the other granchildren had in the past.

On the way, we passed this strange contraption. The chaps were doing a survey of the underside of the railway bridge and moved aside to let us pass.

At the entrance to the tunnel, we dropped Max and his Grandma off. It looks like Max was a bit overawed by the whole thing!

Normally there is a queue of boats here but today MM was the only boat waiting to go through the tunnel and, after taking our particulars, the tunnel keeper waved us on into the tunnel.

The tunnel used to have a towpath on the right but it was taken away to give more clearance, particularly where the roof gets quite low in the middle. The view below is looking back to the entrance.

A little over 1.5 miles and 40 minutes later, we arrived at the south portal. When boats are in the tunnel, this portal is closed off with two doors and powerful fans blow air through the tunnel. Normally, the doors open when you are about 100 metres away but today we ended up having to stop as the doors remained firmly closed! We had visions of being trapped inside for ever! Finally the fans were switched off and the doors opened so that we could get out. Phew!

The tunnel keepers were most apologetic but said that they had been distracted by a rabbit in the canal! Pathetic excuse!

Westport Lake is beautiful and we have moored here many times. Usually it is the luck of the draw if there is space to moor but today there was only one boat moored up and we could have had our choice. Sadly, we need to keep going.

After our adventures in the tunnel,we decided that we deserved a break and a bit of lunch, so we moored up outside Middleport Pottery.

The showroom is full of beautiful, if quite expensive, pottery all of which is made on site.

Middleport is one of the few local potteries that still make pottery in Stoke-on-Trent; it dates back to the 1850s.

They use original Victorian techniques and you can do a fascinating tour that gets you really close to the people actually making the china. Most of the china is decorated using paper transfers like this.

Finally, our reward: coffee for R and excellent leek and potato soup for M.

By the exit to our mooring there was a table with this old game that told the story of how a piece is made and all the things that can go wrong.

Outside the pottery was this old working boat built in 1946 that used to work this part of the canal bringing in raw materials from Cornwall and taking finished goods to Liverpool for export.

Etruria has three locks and the first is very deep. One has to rethink everything because since the Bridgewater we have been going through 35 rising locks and now we have to start going downhill.

Just beyond the three Etruria locks is a housing estate built on an old pottery. There are still two bottle kilns beside the canal and we have often moored here before, so this is our mooring tonight. Sadly, every time we moor here, the buddlieas growing out of the kilns get more profuse.

Today: 6 miles, 4 locks and 3.3 hours.

Trip: 285 miles, 138 locks and 144.2 hours.