One odd place to another!

Nantwich is an odd sort of place. Pleasant enough. But odd, we thought. The cruise from there on to Audlem was beautiful, however. Dairy herds spread out across lush pastures, hillier countryside beyond. Swallows graced us with their presence a lot of the time, singing shrilly in the trees between sorties for food over the canal.

Hack Green Locks interrupted the tranquillity for a short while, and a brief encounter with shallows on the off-side whilst waiting for an oncoming boat to pass an obstacle. Kantara lurched quite violently to port as Grace drove her onto the invisible mudbank, but no harm was done, and we reversed off easily enough.

The Secret Nuclear Bunker is marked clearly on the OS map, and canalside signs make sure that all passers-by know about it. We didn't visit it - it claims to be a day's entertainment - but we've added it to our Llangollen/Weaver trip.

Arriving at Audlem, we filled up with water and disposed of rubbish after the first two locks, then moored at the Visitor Moorings above Lock 13. We had lunch at The Shroppie Fly ("No hot food today because of the hot weather"), and perused the fascinating Audlem Mill Canal Shop adjacent to it.

We strolled into the village, too, but it was here that we discovered that Audlem's also a pretty strange place. It has the feel of a very old village where not much has changed over time. There are few shops, and most of those were either closed or closed down. A Co-Op and a traditional butcher's shop appeared to be the only suppliers of food.

Back at the boat after two hours, we decided to carry on up the Audlem Flight, and stop for the night at the top - 15 locks up. It was a good decision. Nearly all of the locks were set in our favour, and, apart from the really tricksy sluices at the bottom of each one of them, pouring water out from the side across the canal in currents that made steering difficulty, all went well.

Until Lock 4, when the engine cut out without warning, just as Grace was taking Kantara in. The engine exhaust had been unusually smokey for a while, but nothing else had seemed to be wrong, and I thought, "Oh-oh!"

I took a centre line, and pulled the boat back to a place where we could moor her without being too much in everyone else's way. I tried to phone River Canal Rescue, found my phone had no signal, took it up to higher ground and tried again, failed and went back to the boat, tried Grace's phone, heard RCR's phone ringing. And it rang, and it rang, and it rang. They were closed for the day, except for emergencies. And this was not one of those.

So here we are. Stranded. I'll phone RCR first thing in the morning. It's a pleasant spot between two close locks, with the constant background sound of rushing water.

Moor and Peace

How very appropriate, here on the Shropshire Union Canal!

We left our very Peaceful Mooring hoping upon hope that the Canal Club boat we'd encountered yesterday had made a very early start, and was moving at least 50% faster than she was yesterday. This was not very charitable of us, I accept, but we do have a schedule to keep. We do need to be on the Wyrley and Essington (aka the Curly Wyrley) by Friday week. And I really do want the poor lady skippering that boat to be doing it better than she was yesterday. For her own sake, and that of her family.

It was a warm day, and building up to be very hot. Swallows darted around the boat. Three of them were seeing off a buzzard, flying at him from all angles as if to confuse him, until he got the message and winged it.

The Shroppie is clearly a superior canal; superior to the Leeds & Liverpool and the Bridgewater. It has Armco for mooring. Miles of it, on banks that aren't overgrown with undergrowth, so that, once again, we can moor pretty much where we want to.

Except that there's the Shroppie Ledge, a mysterious protrusion from the side of the canal, below water level, which gets in the way sometimes when you try to moor, and results in the boat standing out from the back a foot or so. We haven't actually experienced the problem yet, but we have seen lots of boats moored with that gap between them and the bank.

And then there are the wasps. Entirely seasonal, of course, but still a problem. It wasn't so bad today, but yesterday they were buzzing around us in large numbers almost immediately we turned onto the canal. They stayed with us until bridge 27, when they simply disappeared en masse. Even the ones which had been avidly feeding in bowls which had held cake and cream just left. It was strange, as if some natural law forbade their passing beyond that point.

We stopped counting the boats we met, yesterday. This canal is far busier than any that we've been on this yea, and we're probably meeting more in one day now than we were seeing in a week previously.

We spent some time travelling with NB Serenity, getting to chat with them when both of us stopped for a lock. They were on their way to Venetian Marina, where they'd be hanging up their windlasses after six years of living aboard. They were finding life on the canals was getting too much for them as they were getting older, and were stopping while the going wasn't too tough. Wise, but sad.

We've been using less diesel that we'd expect, which is a good thing, of course. But, with about half a tankful still, we decided to fill it to the top again, thinking that this will probably last us now until the end of this cruise. We pulled over at Venetian Marina and filled up. NB Serenity was moored sadly nearby, her owners no doubt psyching themselves up now for moving off her and back onto land.

It was good to meet NB Dabbling this afternoon, albeit for the ten seconds it takes for two boats to pass each other. We were greeted first of all by the lady at the tiller, then by her husband who appeared from below, calling out that he's  a reader of this blog. I got a Tweet from Gerard this evening.

@NBKantara great to sail past a #boatsthattweet, enjoy reading your blog. I was working in L'pool last week and did spot you on the moorings

It's always good to meet folk who read the blog, or have read my book, or whom I follow on Twitter. It makes them far more real somehow!

At Barbridge Junction, we turned left,

passed the start of the Llangollen Canal,

and went on to Nantwich.

A long line of moored craft had left a space for us!

The sunset over Nantwich was phenomenal!

Not Photoshopped!