Barleston to High Lane

We are home, but at the moment my broadband connection is faulty so I will update the last episode of our summer cruise when it is fixed. The plan is to upload lots of the photos that I have not used onto the internet with a link so that you can all see them. The Openreach engineer has just arrived so I will have to go. Keep watching it will all be sorted in a couple of days. The links to more photographs taken on this cruise
Purton Hulks Full set of Photos taken at Purton
Severn Valley Railway
Slimbridge

Finally got the log sorted so here goes for the last two days of the cruise

Miles 36.8 Locks 19 Days 2
Sunday 21/06/2009 Barleston to Dane Aqueduct at the bottom of Bosley Locks.
We were up early today to get ahead of the single hander that held everyone up yesterday but not early enough to be the first boat at Trentham lock and subsequently the Stone Flight. we followed the same boat waiting at most locks for it to clear the lock and on occasions waiting for another boat to come down. The timing for Harecastle tunnel was just about perfect we got there just as the southbound boats were making their exit from the tunnel. A 45 minute passage through and we were on the Macc with two boats in front who moored up at Red Bull for lunch. We continued on and stopped at Heritage boats for a Pump-out and then on to Bosley Bottom.
Monday 22/06/2009 Bosley bottom lock to High Lane.
Another early start and this time we were first up the locks, not that it mattered much as most of them were against us. We didn't meet another boat coming down until two from the top. We took on water at the top of the locks and carried on only to find the canal covered on large clumps of reeds that had broken off from the bank. I call these green icebergs as most of their mass is below water level. We finally secummed to the weed on the prop about 200yards in and I had to go down the weed hatch to clear the prop - we couldn't even get into the side, M had to hang on to some moored boats we were passing. After Fools Nook swing bridge things cleared up but the we noticed haw low the water was in the canal (about 4" lower than its normal level). The final run into High lane was uneventful until we went into our mooring and the boat took on a list as we grounded on the mud. I was quite disappointed as I had taken 7 wheelbarrow loads of mud out of the mooring only 6 weeks earlier. Two buses later and I was back with the car and we unload essentials and the laundry and we went home.