Monday 13th August 2007
Chellshill - Sideway Bridge 108 (12¼ miles, 19 locks)
Another day of mixed weather. Jen had got up in the night to watch the shooting stars caused by the Perseid meteor shower. It had been a beautiful starlit night, but the rest of us slept through it.
As we headed south towards Rode Heath, the colour of the water changed to a rusty red due to the iron ore deposits in this area. I was hoping to buy diesel before we went through Harecastle Tunnel, but the only place we found was in Kidsgrove where I paid an extortionate 60p per litre, compared to the 48p we paid at Great Heywood a few weeks earlier.
At Harecastle Tunnel, the keeper told us we had a 45 minute wait. We wanted to go shopping and buy lunch in Kidsgrove so we expected to miss that next timeslot. The shops in Kidsgrove were totally underwhelming. We had heard about the "oaties" and found a café specialising in oatcakes with a variety of fillings. When we placed our order, the man behind counter, who spoke little English, explained that they had run out of oats and baps and could only offer sandwiches made with stale Tesco Value bread. Ah, Staffordshire, the gourmet county of England.
We abandoned the local shops in favour of Tesco, where Jen bought oaties, ham and cheese which she grilled back on the boat - delicious. We would like to support local shops in their battle against the supermarkets, but they have to make the effort too....
We ate our lunch waiting for the next timeslot for boats heading south through the tunnel. There were originally two tunnels with one-way working in each tunnel, although only the later tunnel had a towpath. The earlier tunnel is now closed, the towpath has gone from the second tunnel and subsidence due to mining activity has resulted in low headroom in some sections. Ventilation shafts were not needed in the days of horse-drawn barges so none were provided. Nowadays, doors are closed at the south end and huge extractor fans switched on to suck out the fumes.
We waited for the three boats heading north to emerge from the tunnel. The keeper had explained that we would be the second boat through after a petrol powered plastic cruiser. These always go first because they generate more noxious fumes and because they tend to travel faster. The remaining four narrowboats were sent through with a 2 minute gap between each boat.
The plastic boat in front of us didn't have a proper tunnel light, just a torch. When we reached the long stretch of low headroom, he slowed right down and I was worried about running into him since the dim glimmer from his torch made him difficult to see. They were also shouting, although I couldn't tell if they were testing the echo or calling for help.
By the time we emerged, all the boats were very close together, stuck behind the slow plastic boat.
We filled up at the water-point. This proved to be a big mistake since the water tasted pretty foul. We must remember to sample the water first in future.
We carried on down through Stoke and past the junction at Etruria where the Caldon Canal heads off to Leek and Froghall. Tess fell in the lock twice whilst messing about and I lost my temper with her. Either she needs more discipline from now on, or I need to chill out more..
We escaped from the built-up area and moored with several other boats between Stoke and Hem Heath. We had followed NB Sea-Jay down the previous few locks crewed by an elderly lady with a lad in his early twenties, the son of friend who was helping to move the boat - Lucy and Rosemary later admitted he was drop-dead gorgeous.