Monday we went down the Coventry Canal in the direction of Coventry (surprise surprise) but we decided we didn’t really like the look of it so we just went 2.5 miles to the winding hole at Bridge 7, turned round, went back to Bridge 8, moored up and went to Tescos.
There is a huge Tesco Extra here at the Ricoh Arena complex and it is right beside the canal. There is a rather tricky flight of steps up to the bridge from the canal. Well, tricky to get down for us alcoholics with a trolley laden with beer but not tricky for normal people I suppose!
After negotiating said steps with said trolley of beer and two rucksacks of other comestibles we set off back to Hawkesbury. By the time we had done this 5 mile trip, the shopping and the stop lock we had been gone 3 hours! As there was a convenient mooring just past the lock we decided to stop for the day.
Tuesday we did a rather longer trip of 11 miles but no locks from Hawkesbury to Newbold on Avon. this took 4 hours including a stop at the fishing tackle shop by Bridge 4. I spent much of the journey cleaning inside the boat, washing and drying. I now have nice pile of ironing to do on our next trip!
There was a lot of boating activity today and as we had passed so many boats we were hopeful that there would be somewhere to moor up at Newbold. However when we arrived here there was a serious lack of free spaces. Our first choice, at Falls Bridge was full. Well, I say that, there was the day boat from the boat yard opposite taking up two spaces so we would have been able to get in if it had been moored more sensibly.
Anyway, we carried on and managed to get on the end of the moorings through the tunnel and past Bridge 50. We are actually not right on the end as there are 3 boats moored behind us on pins but we are on the end of the ring moorings.
These moorings are corrugated so we have to attach the fenders to the protruding bits of the bank rather than to the boat as they slip into the grooves when the boat moves if they are attached to the boat. However they still move about if you tie them to the mooring rings and the back end of the boat has been banging every time a boat passes going the same way as we are facing. If a boat passes in the other direction it doesn’t seem to happen. Odd that.
We went off to the Coop and to look at the bus times to Rugby, then we went to the Barleymow. Would have been churlish not to as it is so close!
Today it was pissing down when we got up (and has pissed down nearly all day) so we went to Rugby on the bus. I like Rugby it is a nice town and has a convenient Asda in the town centre. We did a few bits and pieces of shopping which we had forgotten the other day and indeed I have still forgotten two more items which I thought of earlier! Then we went to the pub obviously.
We came back fairly early from Rugby with the intention of going out again later to The Crown to watch the Europa League Cup final. We had a little kip this afternoon, had dinner early as well then discovered the match was being shown on BT Showcase which we can get on Freeview. So that has saved us – a) going out again in the rain to get to the pub and – b) about £15 in beer, brilliant!
Tomorrow we are going to either Hillmorton or Braunston depending on what we feel like.
