From Heathdavid@aol.com Sat May  1 11:22:22 1999
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 17:33:47 EDT
From: Heathdavid@aol.com
Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org
To: Canals@blacksheep.org
Subject: Soared Round the Ring 1

Hi all,

Several people had kindly asked me to post my jotting on out trip round the
Leicester ring - so here they are. For those of you who haven't seen my home
page - shame on you :-))  We were in Mirage, a Dawncraft 25. Whilst we had
previously taken long weekends in both directions around the ring so knew
where we would like to stop for the first and last couple of days. The long
bit in tthe middle was uncharted territory. 

Friday: We set off at 615 pm after finishing work so that we could get a  good
start on Saturday, having left our base close to the junction of the River
Soar and River Trent at Red Hill. We travelled up through the electric lock at
Sawley and onto the Trent and Mersey canal and moored overnight at Shardlow.
By then, we had remembered the things that we had forgotten to bring with us!
I have forgotten my tool box but Mary assured me that I wouldn't need !!  Mary
had brought her gas hairstyler that was almost empty and which promptly ran
out the first time she used it - major calamity - much more major a problem
than no tool box! We ate at a pub on the A6 (that didn't stop serving food at
eight o'clock unlike the others by the canal). 

Saturday: We started at 8.30 and had a good run through to Willington. We
moored briefly at Willington and looked around for shops selling gas refills
for the hairstyler without success. After Willington, we caught up with a
narrow boat travelling really slowly that was determined not to let us bye.
Having travelled along moving on and off tickover and getting blown sideways
by the wind, we at last managed to get by before mooring at Dallow Lane lock,
the first of the narrow locks at Burton on Trent. We then over heard the
people on the NB we had passed talking about a queue jumpers to the crew of
the boat in the lock. We found that we had joined a queue of boats at the lock
as we had mistimed it and had to watch the hire boaters from Jannel learning
how to operate the locks. As we left the lock behind us, the slow narrow boat
people opened the paddles to empty the lock as the man at the other end
started to close the gate and he was dragged off his feet as the gate slammed
to. We were surprised that no damage had been done gate but felt that we were
unlikely to achieve anything by returning. We cruised steadily on through
Burton On Trent and headed through the next two locks in order to moor by the
Bridge Inn at Branston, one of our favourite stopping places. There were a
huge number of boats already moored there and we could see our evening meal
slipping away. Having washed and changed, we arrived at a quarter to eight to
find that there was plenty of space.  We tucked into one of their famous meals
with 12 vegetables.

Sunday: We made another nice and early start at 830 and stopped at Alrewas to
shop. Still no gas so we phoned daughter Kate with our emergency supply list.
We left Alrewas at 1030 and caught up with a queue of boats at Bagnall lock
where we paired up with for Tony and Gina in Bluebell, who we subsequently
found also moor at Redhill. Having waited for the boats to pass through
Bagnall Lock, it came as a surprise that the same boats were queuing to go if
through the following lock and it took us till 2pm to finally reached Fradley
Junction. We made our prearranged stop by bridge 89 on the Coventry Canal to
meet daughter Kate with our supplies at the nearby petrol station. We finally
left at 3.30 but with no locks for quite a while, we decided to cruise on into
the evening and finally moored above Glascote Locks behind Tony and Gina.