A Lovely Day's Cruising

Friday 3rd October, 2014 at Stafford.
In April 2010, we had spent our first night ever on board a rented narrowboat, nb "Emma", in this very spot and woke to a magical misty morning:

This morning, the view from MM was as beautiful but the mist was absent.

Despite the gloomy weather forecast, the day was dry, bright and breezy and the cruising was a delight.
We set off from Gailey after breakfast through the lock adjacent to the Round House, a well-known landmark on the waterways system.

For once, there were plenty of boats on the move so there was either a boat in front of us in the locks or one coming the other way. We realised that there are several hire bases in the area and many of these do their change-over on a Saturday, so boats were getting close to arrive early on Saturday morning.
It is a lovely stretch of waterway and even the length alongside the M6 was not without interest; to M's delight, we spotted an Eddie, "Joy Marry", heading north. There are very pleasant moorings on that stretch and M declared that she could happily have put out the picnic chairs and spent the day "Eddie spotting".

On the way, we passed Otherton's at Penkridge. We visited twice while doing our narrowboat research and even considered buying one of their boats. Sadly, it looked rather run-down.

At Park Gate Lock, we helped an elderly gentleman through with his boat "Victoria Plum". He was single handing despite having some mobility problems - very courageous. Just before the next lock he ran aground, so we threw him a line and towed him free and then helped him through the next lock.

As we were leaving the lock, somthing solid became caught in the propeller and stopped the engine dead. Fortunately, whatever it was fell off and we were able to restart the engine and continue after checking that there was no damage.
We had decided to moor on the outskirts of Stafford as M has to go home for two nights tomorrow morning. The moorings marked in the guide-books were not very appealing, being next to a couple of large industrial units, but a few hundred yards further on we found a very pleasant mooring under a line of poplar trees and opposite a house with happy hens in the garden.

Today: 9 miles, 11 locks and 6.2 hours.
Trip: 299 miles, 205 hours and 225.1 hours.