Goodbye SU, hello S&W

 A Traditional working boat

We awoke to bright sunshine - again! We were a bit late but set ourself an ambitious target, to reach Penkridge by nightfall. Saw this trad boat early on, selling rope fenders.

 An amourous bull

We passed very close to a bunch of cows standing right by a narrow spot on the canal. This bull was making overtures to those around him - we moved on rapidly - at 4mph.

Autherley Junction 

 We reached the end of the Shropshire Union Canal at the stop lock at Autherley Junction. This lock is only a few inches deep and was apparently insisted upon by the owners of the Staffs and Worcester canal to avoid their water being 'stolen'. We were helped through the locks by a couple of enterprising boys and then turned nort, towards Stafford.

 One cute dog in a boat

 An incredibly narrow length of canal

 Now on the Staffs and Worcester canal, we encountered this section of canal. Only about 8 feet wide and about a mile long - a real challenge to stop scraping along the rocks! There are a couple of passing places, but we were fortunate and didn't meet any oncoming traffic.

Today's heron picture! 

Strange lock architecture

Deep lock with high cill 

 Most of the locks on this canal are over 8 foot deep and all seem to have very high cills (the bit below the gate in the above pic, which you need to keep clear of when descending).

 Tight squeeze up these steps

 To speed up our progress down through these locks, I have taken to stopping in the exit and nipping up the steps to shut the gate, which avoids Angela having to leap over the gap or walk round via the distand gate. This particular set of steps required a crawl up at the top since there was virtually no headroom between the steps and the adjacent bridge.

Canoists near tonight's moorings

We made it to Penkridge as planned, but decided to press on a bit, and are now moored near Acton Trussell just south of Stafford. We had to move the boat a bit as it turned out we had some kind of obstruction amidships! Banjo adopted a list and strange noises were coming from underneath. After a lot of heaving about we managed to drag ourselves clear and move along the bank a bit - all ship shape now.