Hartshill to Bradley Green….

Coventry Canal

The weather was very uncertain this morning as we set off for Atherstone Locks – very windy with scudding grey clouds.  We hoped that it would stay dry for the 11 locks – we really hate doing locks in the rain.  We didn’t plan to go far today.  The first few locks were very slow going as we had a boat in front of us so they all needed to be filled before we could descend, and they are notoriously slow fillers.  However we soon started to see boats coming the other way, so after that quite a few were ready for us, and things speeded up a bit.  We were at the bottom in just over two hours which isn’t bad.  We had a very short shower of rain in between two of the locks, but as we came down the last, there was a huge, very black cloud following us – we decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and moored up sharpish today to save another soaking!  In actual fact the rain missed us again, but we decided to stay where we were as the wind was beginning to become troublesome.

Cassie intently watching a pair of ducks who got out of the water above the lock, waddled purposefully around it, down the bank and into the water below.

Pretty garden beside one of the locks

Rog doing some work!

Approaching the last lock

Our mooring for tonight, with the bottom lock in the background of the photo below

The following photos are of the River Anker, which flows very close to the canal at the bottom of Atherstone, and is in flood, the water reaching far into the fields beyond the main course of the river – we’ve travelled this stretch a lot of times over the years and have never seen this before!

The water is almost to the fence in the foreground, which is only a few yards down a bank from the towpath just behind our mooring!  The water is flowing very fast indeed – thankfully there is a fence between the towpath and the river or Cassie would have been washed away had she ventured over to it!

4 miles and 11 locks today