Friday 20 March 09. Top of Hatton Flight to the Bottom of Lapworth Flight. 3 hours 5 locks 1 tunnel and onto a new canal.



Woken this morning at 01:30 by a good old Duck giving the hull a clean along the waterline.

You just gotta love them Ducks.

We thanked the Duck in the morning with the contents of a twelve bore before leaving for the tunnel.









We have only seen a handful of boats in the past few days and guess where we met one today, yep right in here. This was a quite short tunnel with some light in it coming from either end so we managed to get a couple of pics. Ill post the other one soon.

This was one end of the Shrewley Tunnel, the dot of light is the other. The tunnel at top right is where the horses were led whilst the boats were "Legged" through. This is where two men laid on planks set either side of the bow, and walked along the tunnel walls pushing the boat along. This short tunnel took 15 Min's to pass with a diesel engine, they certainly earned their crust doing that job.

Carrying on we came across this, I have read about these but never seen one. It is a "Caraboat" you can just make out the wheel arches and see the lights on the back/stern. Apparently these are towed like a caravan and used like one but if you fancy a cruise up the canal or river just chuck it in and off you go! Simple.

The canal passes high above these country mansions, this is just one with the stables and grounds visible. Just think how many boats and caravans you could get in there.

We passed acres and acres of huge Christmas trees, these are far too big for the domestic market and seem too small to be logged, perhaps they are in mid growth.
At last! we have made it to the turn onto the Stratford & Avon canal, left it is then.



Look at the state of that bridge, its no surprise though as it is a difficult 90 degree blind turn to make (unless of course you are in a ten foot dinghy). Luckily nothing was coming the other way, with those long term moorings on the right it would have been a case of grease the sides, quick.

These bridges hark back to the horse era as well, that groove through the middle is to drop the rope from the towing horse through so there was no untying from the barge and speeding the passage up a bit.



This is some of our task for the morning, (there are more around the corner) these are all narrow locks and slightly harder for us than the wide ones so therefore will take a bit longer to do.

If the sun keeps shining who cares.

We have just been passed by the second boat of the day and he has recommended a cider house at bridge 19...........mmmmm shall we? shall we not?

Another day approaches......... (we haven't really got a twelve bore)