Shiralee Cruise 2011 #27

Friday 2nd September 3 pm.

This morning we took a walk in across the bridge to the local shop for the paper and a bottle of milk. Sadly, although the papers were in, the milk wasn’t, so Wifey took another walk later. Where we intend mooring up tomorrow, which is in the middle of nowhere in particular, it’s unlikely we’ll find a shop.

At lunchtime we spent a very pleasant hour or so sitting outside The Greyhound pub with drinks and snacks. The pub is situated at a spot called Sutton Stop, right at the junction of the Coventry and North Oxford canals. The place is named after the man who took the tolls at the stop-lock many years ago, whose name, unsurprisingly, was Sutton.

Looking towards the front of the pub from the Coventry canal towpath, you would see mooring bollards directly outside the pub, which are for the likes of daily trip boats. To the left of the pub is the aforementioned stop-lock, which is at the top of the North Oxford canal.

This lock opens into the small basin in front of the pub and, in order to access the Coventry canal, boaters pass under a bridge, turning left for Coventry and right for moorings and onward to the other end of the Coventry at Fradley Junction and the Trent and Mersey Canal, which is where we will be heading once we have taken a two c week run up the Ashby canal and back.

Our next mooring stop will be between Bedworth and Hinkley, but in a quiet area without much by way of habitation, except a pub called the Corner House Hotel at Bulkington, after two days of which we’ll be spending three nights at Trinity Marina on the Ashby Canal. After our disappointment with the Barby Marina we really do need a couple of days on a landline to charge our batteries. Happily the gentleman at Barby has forwarded the disc that Alan sent there for us to collect.

Saturday 3rd September.

We took our time leaving Hawkesbury Junction this morning, partly because Wifey wanted to walk to the shop for the paper, and partly because she also wanted to get some washing done. The fact that I also wanted to catch up on some much needed shuteye was also part of the equation.

We eventually set off at about 9.30 and, after just three miles, arrived at bridge 5 on the Ashby Canal. This bridge leads into the village of Bulkington and is one of those places we stopped at on our first cruise in 2007. In fact, looking back on Sheila’s diary for that year, we spent 12 days on this canal, much of the time passed away in pubs. Since we plan on being here for about two weeks this time, we could well surpass our record of seven pubs in total, with The George and Dragon at Stoke Golding being honoured with our presence twice. Although, as we’ve already covered The George and Dragon, we may well walk through to the village of Dadlington and The Dog and Hedgehog.

The first on this pub crawl will be at the Corner House Hotel right here in Bulkington tomorrow lunch time. On Monday we will be in Trinity Marina, where we plan on staying for three nights to charge our batteries on a landline. Believe it or not the marina has a pub, so we’ll be well on our way towards beating the previous record, and we’ll be only six miles into the 22 mile canal. No problem there then! Naturally I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Sunday 4th September

Nasty, drizzly rain this morning and our wee pooch is unwell again. When her tummy is upset, she tends to hang her head and look really sorry for herself. Happily she soon gets over it and, by the time we got back from the Corner House here in Bulkington she was almost back to normal.

The Corner House is, as is usual in this part of the world, a big pub with a good sized car park. Unusually the place started filling up pretty early, no doubt because the meals are very reasonably priced, as are the drinks. Guinness is only £3.15p per pint, a nice change from some of the pubs we’ve been in recently. Unfortunately the cold pump wasn’t working and, as I suspected, since both pumps usually run off the same barrel, the normal temperature pump also gave up the ghost and I had to settle for a Guinness and Mild for the second one.

Actually that’s how I was first introduced to Guinness many years ago, by my ex-wife’s grandfather who lived in Surrey and made his own mild. In those days Guinness came in bottles, there was no such thing as draught. Like most young people at the time, I turned my nose up at the mere idea of allowing that mucky stuff into my mouth, much less my stomach. However, granddad insisted that I give it a try, but mixed with more mild than Guinness. Eventually, after many such visits, I was drinking 100% Guinness and haven’t looked back. So, that second pint, that had mild added, was a memory jogger.

Thus far, over the five months we have been cruising, we have spent a pleasant hour or so in 38 pubs. This equates to one visit every four days. Hopefully we’ll improve on that during the time remaining to us and get it up to two per week, or even better. We’ll certainly have ample opportunity along the Ashby.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be off to Trinity Marina which, if the price is right, might be a good alternative for winter 2012/13, since it will be about the same distance from Harlow as Barby which, as you all know, is not finished yet and didn’t look likely to be any time soon. We shall see!

Monday 5th September and I am sitting here, at 05.45, freezing cold in this tin tomb. Why? Because, as I have said in the past, our nice, new batteries are not fit for purpose. I have been running our engine for at least four hours every day, sometimes five hours and, on most mornings I am at least able to run the heater. This morning, with the batteries reading only 11.7 volts, the heater refused to start up.

Yesterday evening we watched just 2½ hours of television, that’s all, and our batteries have slumped to next to nothing. I won’t even be able to switch the Inverter/Charger on to plug the laptop in, because that would deplete them even more. In fact, when I do turn on the I/C it isn’t long before the lights begin to flicker, which is a sure sign that the I/C is going off and on and I have to turn it off.

With other boats moored nearby I can’t run the engine until 08.00, so we are unable to do anything electrical until then. It seems we are going to have to return to having six batteries instead of the current four. It’s just as well we’re spending three days and night at Trinity Marina from today, otherwise I doubt we would get back to Mercia without some serious problems. If I don’t see a marked improvement after that time we’ll be going back sooner than we would like. I am now wasting gas by having the cooker on to keep warm.

Well, that’s it for this entry, I’m too annoyed to write anything sensible for now. It’s just as well I charged the laptop yesterday while engine was running, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to treat you all to a moan.

It is now 06.45 and I have just come back from walking the dog. The batteries are now reading just 10.5 volts. Wifey will be lucky if she can run the taps in the bathroom at this rate, and I am sitting here in a darkened boat because I daren’t turn any lights on. Nope, these batteries are not fit for purpose, at least, four of them aren’t. It seems we will definitely have to increase to six before we leave Mercia next year. At least then we should have enough overnight charge to run the heater.

Tuesday 6th September and I’m pleased to say I’m in a much better mood today.

We decided to leave Bulkington a little later than usual yesterday, to allow the big, working boats that had attended the festival at Shackerstone over the weekend, to pass us on their way out of the Ashby Canal. Leaving at 9 am, as we did, we hoped to reduce the amount of these bigger boats, at least by a few.

We were headed for Trinity Marina, which is just past bridge 17 and, even though we did come across a few returning boats, we didn’t experience any real problems with them. Trouble can arise when faced with one of these older, working boats, especially when they are towing a ‘butty’. This engineless boat can be as long as the one towing it and, if they are both 70 feet long and you meet on a bend, great care must be taken. The towing boat is unable to slow down and the man in control has to rely on the skill of the boater approaching. Almost all of these boats are of timber construction, so a collision with a steel hulled boat could cause serious damage.

After a five mile trip we arrived at Trinity at about 11.00, just in time to miss the rain and higher winds, which really rocked us later in the evening and during the night. Happily it had stopped raining by the time I took Rusty out a short while ago.

We are staying at the marina until Thursday morning, giving us 72 hours on the mains electrickery, which should be plenty of time to charge the batteries and, hopefully, see us back to Mercia without further problems. If not then, well, you know the rest. It really is great to be able to run the television and lights, along with the heating, without having to worry about being able to turn the heating on in the morning and charging the laptop.

When we arrived here we collected an info sheet regarding mooring fees because we are considering coming here for winter 2012. Alas, whilst their fees are similar to those of Mercia, they also demand a huge bonding fee on top of everything else being paid. On the example we found on the reverse of the info sheet this bond amounted to over £400. What we are asking ourselves is, why? It’s not as if we would be hiring a cottage or caravan with a whole bunch of stuff entrusted to our care. We are simply mooring up for the winter, what can we possibly do that requires a financial bond?

Nope, don’t think we’ll be coming here, this extra fee strikes me as a simple money maker, levied on unfortunate boaters to give the owners of the site a bit of positive cash flow. Needless to say, I won’t be posting this blog until we have left, just in case someone does a Paul from Pillings Lock and takes umbrage at reading it.

Today we’ll be taking the bus into Hinkley for shopping.

Cheers for now. More tomorrow.

Wednesday 7th September and, I’m pleased to say, that the wind has dropped and the rain has stopped. It’s now 07.00 and I’ve just returned from walking Rusty, who seems to be unwell again. She’ll be hanging her head again for a few hours and will refuse her food.

Yesterday we took a bus ride into Hinkley and the rain finally hit us, just as we were walking up the high street. Happily it didn’t last long and we managed the return trip without a soaking. The shopping area is quite spread and doesn’t have a supermarket anywhere that we could see. However, when the bus we came in on pulled away, his destination blind said ’Morrisson’s’, so even Hinkley is not free of the giants.

Today we’ll enjoy another pub lunch at the nearby Brewer’s Fayre.

Thursday 8th September.

Well, it’s still a bit blustery out there and we have to leave Trinity today, probably for Stoke Golding, which is about three miles away. But, if the weather turns really nasty, we’ll stop along the cut just as soon as we can.

We enjoyed a pub lunch at The Marina, the Brewer’s Fayre pub next to the marina and also next to a Premier Inn. It was one of their establishments that helped us out many years ago, when we drove into a severe blizzard crossing the Pennines. After seeing the lights glimmering through the snow storm, we pulled in and booked in for one night. By morning however, the snow was so deep as to be impossible to drive, and also impossible for snow ploughs to reach us. The management of the place kindly put us up and fed and watered us for a second night, absolutely free of charge. So, it’s always a pleasure to pay one of their outlets a visit when we can.

We’ll probably leave a bit later than normal, say about 10 am or so. This will give us time to dispose of rubbish, top up with water and get today’s Mail.

Friday 9th September.

We left Trinity at about 09.30 yesterday, after spending some time talking to a couple of other boaters, who agreed that this particular marina is not the friendliest of moorings. The financial bond was new to them, as was the £50 deposit for the access key to the steel gates.

At Mercia and Pillings Lock marinas we were struck by how friendly the other boaters were, nobody would dream of walking past you without a cheery ‘hello’. What a difference at Trinity, where quite a few people ignore you completely. What a shame too, because it casts a sad reflection on management of the place. After all, if your customers are happy it shows in their attitude towards others. It’s very much like being back in Harlow, where you only have to stray a few hundred yards from home, and you’ll be looked upon as a complete stranger. Sad!

Another boater, we heard, had already left for Barby Marina, what was he thinking? He’ll probably find himself waiting a couple of months for his pontoon to be built, much like the other half dozen boats we saw clustered together. The advert for that place has been running for at least a couple of months, with pretty artist’s impressions of what it will look like. Any port in a storm, or so they say, but it’s doubtful we’ll even consider the place for next year now.


I had hoped to post this entry this morning, alas the Internet signal is a wee bit weak and I only just managed to download my emails, and that took two attempts.

Yesterday, after only an hours cruising, we arrived at out current moorings, which are between bridges 22 and 23 on the Ashby. According to the forecast today should be fairly calm with a few showers, so we’ll probably move along to Stoke Golding and, if we can’t get in there, we’ll carry on until we can find a reasonable spot.

And that’s it for this morning.

Friday 4.30 pm and we’ve had a beautiful late morning and early afternoon. Alas, the wind is now strengthening and the clouds have blotted out the sun, so I suppose we are now in for some rain.

This morning must have been one of the shortest cruises we have taken since leaving Mercia, the trip to Stoke Golding being only a mile in length and half an hour duration. Since about 10.30 this morning we have simply chilled out, our normal routine whatever the distance or duration of trip.

I am of the opinion that it will rain in the morning also, in which case we’ll stay here. For now though I’ll attempt to post this offering and wish you all well for the weekend.

All abreast from Dave, Sheila and Rusty.