Normally we boat in the morning and then do other things; today we’ve done it the other way round. We were pausing in Market Drayton for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Mark Elliott from BBC Radio Shropshire came to visit, to record an interview about the podcast — although it turned out to be more about boating in general with only a passing mention of the pod! I think it’s supposed to be on tomorrow, on the 10-2 show.
Then we had a visit from the Halfies, who live just across the canal in a house with a mooring. They had a look at KV, and then we walked into town for lunch. We took the country route, down the steps by the aqueduct and up the lane. That end of town is rather attractive.
The panel on the side of the building on the left has the number of paces to each pub, and also to the canal – 1548 if I remember correctly. We came back a different way so I couldn’t count. We had a nice lunch at Jones coffee house. They have their own vineyard, and we’d been recommended to get one of their bin end bottles, so we have a bottle of white for £5.95. It was great to catch up with John and Jan too. We’d initially planned to stay in Market Drayton for the whole day, but there’s a storm forecast for tomorrow and we have an appointment in Audlem, so we thought we’d better get moving. We set off about 1.45, just behind a share boat which had stopped for lunch.
There are lots more moored boats on the way out of Market Drayton, but then you get to Betton Woods, which are rather nice. Then the views open out across the Shropshire countryside.
We got to the top of Adderley Locks just behind the share boat, and there was a single hander going down in front of them. But one of the share boat crew went ahead to help, and in fact we all helped each other when we could. It’s a rather pretty flight, especially in today’s sunshine.
The five locks took about an hour, not bad considering we were in a convoy. There was only one boat moored at the bottom, somewhere that always looks nice but we’ve never stopped. We carried on to the top of the Audlem flight, and did the top two locks down to the Coxbank moorings.
There was plenty of space here too (which isn’t always the case). It’s become a bit of a favourite mooring of hours, quiet with nice views, and no big trees which might be important if the 40mph winds arrive tomorrow as predicted. The share boat ahead was going as far as possible this evening. Their boat is due back to Overwater on Saturday, but they didn’t fancy the look of tomorrow’s weather either.
5 miles, 7 locks. (331 miles, 206 locks)