Tamworth

We are making the most of the relatively fine weather as the forecast from Tuesday for the rest of the week doesn't look very promising. We are hoping to get to Penkridge for Friday night so we can go to the market on Saturday. It's about fourteen hours cruising time from where we are tonight at Tamworth which would be no problem apart from the weather forecast. We aren't fair weather boaters but prefer to avoid getting soaked if we can. I'm sure we can manage to find three decent hours per day on average.

There was no sign of our interesting neighbours this morning so we headed off down the remaining six locks of Atherstone flight, it being Sunday there were lots of boats on the move so it was a case of  "one up one down" at each lock but luckily no queues.

Then it was just under three hours lock free cruising to Glascote Locks, through those and then half an hour onward, past the junction with the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal to our overnight mooring just west of Tamworth.

From here we can walk to the supermarket for the weekly shop and also visit B&Q for a couple of bits, then we will carry on heading northwards towards Fradley and the junction with the Trent and Mersey.

Today's journey 10.5 miles and 8 locks

So far this year we have travelled 176.4 miles, 119 locks, 4 swing bridges and 5 tunnels

In 2011 we travelled 461.4 miles, 444 locks, 3 swing bridges, 34 lift bridges and 15 tunnels


During 2010 we travelled 740.3 miles, 642 locks, 53 swing bridges, 4 lift bridges and 25 tunnels

Since Ray retired we have travelled 1378.1 miles, 1205 locks, 60 swing bridges, 38 lift bridges and 45 tunnels