Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 13:44:23 -0500 From: Kkroeker Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Subject: Trip report part 4 - final (long) (XP) [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Sunday October 1, 2000 Slept in to 8:30 or so and spent a while recovering from the night before. After breakfast, I looked out the aft ddoors to see Sean attempting to wind Laplander at her mooring behind Draco. Went out and helped, but more power was needed so called for Grant. After pushing her back and getting up some rotational speed we got her past 90 degrees and the rest was easy. We said our Goodbyes on the towpath to Sean, Mike, Krystna and Tony and with photos back and forth set off to wind in the marina entrance (quickly lest we get t-boned by an oncoming boat in the heavy mist). We headed along the north Oxford, retracing the route we had taken the day before with Laplander. The trip was uneventful until we reached Hillmorton bottom lock. Just as I applied power to move out of the lock there was a loud splash as a dog dived into the now empty lock, just missing the cill. I got the boat into neutral just as the dog's owner landed with a thud on the boat and proceeded to drag the dog onto the boat. The dog shivering with fright and cold was quite happy to leave the boat with its owner as we exited the lock.. Excitement over, we arrived in Rugby at about 1:45, where we moored next to Tesco and picked up some supplies for the remainder of our trip. Leaving Tesco we picked up something on the prop in one of the little aqueducts just past the Road bridge and stopped a short while later to clean the prop. Grant volunteered to venture into the weed hatch as he hadn't previously had to do this. Reaching into the unknown, his hand emerged clutching a maroon and white bathing suit, sans owner. One wonders how the two became separated^Å.. We intended to moor for the night at Ansty and to visit with Jeff that evening. About 2 miles before Ansty we encountered a small GRP cruiser being bow hauled down the oxford by 2 tired looking crew. We offered a tow which they quickly accepted, and we proceeded to pull them to the Coventry Crusing club moorings some miles from where we picked them up. We waved goodbye to them and moored a short time later outside the Elephant and Castle. At this point I thought we should let Jeff know we were not coming, but lacked his phone number. After obtaining the number from Mike Wooding, I called Jeff and he very kindly offered to pick us up and take us to a pub not far off where we had a drink and spent a pleasant hour talking music. All told, a full and interesting day. Monday October 2, 2000 Arose at a reasonable hour and were on our way at 8:30. Arrived shortly at Hawkesbury junction where we turned for Coventry basin. The weed and floating debris in the area of the junction was present in large quantities. Ducks were walking on the weed rather than swimming through it. The ducks seemed grateful for the swath we cut through the weed and eagerly swarmed into it. The run to Coventry looked to be a rough one. Debris littered the canal and we heard the sound of scraping against the bottom frequently. Soon though, we saw a dredge clearing the content of a barge into a pile at the side of the canal. The pile stood alongside others of similar composition - lots of tires, twisted metal and chunks of concrete, and many things I could not identify. A short distance later we passed another dredge filling a barge. While we watched the dredge pulled out several large tires and pieces of twisted metal. Upon passing this dredge the canal appeared clear and the run into the basin was uneventful. After winding in the basin and mooring outside of it, we walked into town center and paid our respects to Lady Godiva before returning to the basin for an excellent lunch at Buckingham's tea room (highly recommended). After lunch we retraced our morning route to the junction and shortly took the entrance to the Ashby, where we soon found that the lack of water made progress very slow. We moored at Lime Kilns and had dinner on the boat. October 3, 2000 An early morning start got us to Sutton-Cheney wharf too early for the battlefield center opening, so we walked part of the battle site and returned to the boat. We returned to the Coventry and made Atherstone in light showers. We had dinner on the boat and retired quite early. October 4, 2000 We embarked on the Atherstone flight at 7 AM and found that someone had come through and left top gates open. Nevertheless, all was well until we reached the longish pound between locks 5 and 6, where water levels were too low to float Silver Dale. We encountered another boat coming up from lock 6 and had them hold in place while we retraced the flight and left some paddles open. A BW man at the top promised to close the paddles at an appropriate time. We soon were afloat and managed to pass the other boat without grounding. After lock 6 there were no further problems and we continued on to Steve Hudson's yard where I stopped to look for Jim Pulling's boat which appears to have cruised away. Are you out there Jim? We finished the day at Fradley junction at about 6:30. A Canaltime boat was moored in the space reserved for boats using the swing bridge, leaving us no room to debark other than across their boat. This we did in a not too gentle fashion, but received no response. As an aside, we encountered more Canaltime boats than boats from another other timeshare or hire firm. They must be hugely popular. The bridge negotiated, we moored at the water point in the junction and took on a full tank. There being no moorings close by, we negotiated the Fradley locks and found a space above the last where we moored. Dinner at the Swan was decent and we returned to the boat and a night's rest. October 5, 2000 We rose late, but to bright sunshine and headed off toward Great Haywood. The weather soon turned wet and alternated between sun and rain the remainder of the day. We stopped for a nice lunch at a pub along the way and finished the day at Great Haywood where we documented the issues with the boat and did our end of trip cleaning/packing etc. October 6, 2000 Handed in our paperwork and took a taxi to the train station in Stafford. Got the 9:46 train to Euston Station and were checked in to our Hotel in London by 1PM. I took Grant on a whirlwind tour of London and that was our day. October 7, 2000 Got the tube to Heathrow and checked in. Spent a couple of hours in the British Airways lounge, but saw no pilots quaffing large quantities of Ale. Had a nice flight back to Canada. Now it's time to plan for next year. Thanks to all we encountered. It was a great holiday once again. ---