Audlem Locks

Having done the first two of the 15 at Audlem yesterday, we had 13 to do today.  We were the first up this morning with quite a lot of boats coming down, so all the locks were set in our favour.  We had a fairly quick trip up, but it was hard work, due to the blazing sun.  I opted to work all the locks and let Rog drive the boat as there were some fierce side-washes at the bottom of most of them. If he bumps it going in, that’s ok, but if I do, there’s hell to pay!!

Looking back from lock 9

Looking forwards from Lock 9

Rog preparing to negotiate one of the side-washes, just coming into view on the left of the photo

And trying not to get caught by this one – it was very fierce, pouring down from the pound above

Strong enough for a bit of white-water rafting!

If it’s this bad here, God help us at Tyrley tomorrow!  When we arrived at the top locks there was a table out in front of the cottage selling cakes, scones, jam, cream and eggs so we had to buy some eggs, scones and clotted cream.  We continued on to the bottom of Adderley locks and decided that we would call it a day – it was just too damn hot to do another five locks, and we knew if we did we’d end up mooring in Market Drayton for the night, not a favourite place to moor.  After mooring up we had a very late breakfast of fried egg butties with the eggs I’d bought – they were so fresh they were almost still clucking – lovely!  We sat outside under a tree in the shade and felt right at home as we watched the helicopters from RAF Shawbury buzzing around

Our mooring at the bottom of Adderley.  Just before 2 o’clock we decided to take a stroll up to the Farm Shop at the top of the locks.  Unfortunately, although they were open, there was not much stock as it was all at Telford Indoor Market, where they run a stall 3 times a week.  We’ll try again tomorrow morning after we’ve taken the boat up the locks.

2.5 miles and 13 locks