Not so busy at Bunbury and I spy No Problem

Today – Dale’s Bridge 110 to Vickers Bridge 98, Shropshire Union Canal, 7.25 miles 6 locks
Yesterday – Waverton to Dales’s Bridge 110, 5.75 miles 0 locks

No internet connection at all last night so no blog, but Mr Tesco delivered at the very handy car park next door to the canal at Waverton Bridge on Monday morning.  There is also a Post Office very close by, and if not picking up a Tesco, the Post Office also sells groceries.

We were hoping to moor for the day after Mr Tesco had come and gone not far away where there looked to be, on the map, some great walking country.  But this canal is not the deepest, and everywhere we tried we just could not get No Problem into the side enough due to silting.  So with the view of 2 miles of moored boats ahead..

We decided that it would be a longer day than planned.  We had lunch on the move, and with yet more failed attempts to moor we finally ended up close to Beeston Castle. 

Geocaching is a great pastime which I enjoy very much.  The treasure hunt which is becoming very popular needs some payback from me, and it was time to put out one of my caches, and hide it in the countryside.  I had spied a good place on the map, and after we put the pins in off I went across the fields to hide my box!

I have in place a whole series of geocaches along the Shropshire Union Canal, all within easy reach, of the canal and towpath.  They all begin with Shroppie – followed by the name of the area, such as Shroppie – Chester Locks.  That hidden treasure is a very small one that is attached to a part of the lock by means of a magnet.  Inside there is a log book to sign, but no swaps as it is too small.  The rest of the boxes have swaps inside.  So far there are over 20 of them.  I hope they will be of interest to the readers of this blog if they should venture along The Shropshire Union Canal.

Today was very spring like, and we needed to make our way to Calveley to use the services.   We needed to pump out our grey tank today.  On then through Beeston Stone Lock…

I was on lock duty today, oh boy those gates are heavy too.. Two more locks to go before the last of the wide locks a staircase lock at Bunbury.. but not before meeting John taking photos of our boat, ourselves and our dogs.. nice to have met you John

I took this pic from the next lock up at Bunbury.. this is the staircase of two where we did ‘The Banbury Shuffle’ while going the other way.  There is a stable block here where, in past times, boaters horses were rested overnight..

A licence disc …

If you look very very carefully you will see above 12/09 the name of……

Well not the right coloured paintwork you might say!!..

Ha, this is the mooring of No Problem 45ft long!   That is 5 No Problems that I am aware of now.  Our own of course, then there is one moored at Braunston, one that we met on the River Trent, this one at Bunbury and one we met on the River Nene.

At Calveley it is a DIY pump out, I had picked up a couple of British Waterways pump out tokens at Ellesmere Port Boat Museum last Sunday costing £10 each.  The Boatyards cost anything between £14 and £17.. I didn’t know if the machine would work for long enough to empty our tank.  It is a huge tank, in fact the last time we emptied it was just over 7 weeks ago.  So this was a test for us to find out which is the best, DIY or Boatyard pump out.

I need not have worried, the 10 minutes for £10 was plenty long enough to do the job, so now we know in the future. And with that done, rubbish cleared to the bins and the water tank full to the brim we set off for our evening mooring close to Hurleston Junction away from the very noisy A51 which runs alongside this canal for some way.

Martin, we have just gone past the Barbridge Inn, it did look very inviting, but the road was noisy and there were a lot of boats moored.. my camera was inside.. I promise I will take a picture next time we pass!

We are meeting Seyella with Geoff and Mags and K9 Meg at Hurleston.. I did say tomorrow to Geoff, but it might be Friday now.. I better email him before he reads this!!

Ho hum, walking looks too good round here to leave to quickly tomorrow!