Saturday 16 September 2017

Down through Stoke

I said yesterday that today’s run was the usual one for this route for us, with the exception that we were starting from Westport Lake rather than Etruria, 45 minutes further on. Nonetheless, it’s still a fairly long run by our standards, around 3.5 hours and I set off just after eight. We reached Etruria top at nine and took 40 minutes to descend the Stoke locks, all of which were with us.

There’s then the steady run at a decent speed through the rest of Stoke and on to Trentham, slowing only for the occasional narrows or bridge hole and the moored boats alongside the place that advertises “Tacle and Bait, Airguns, Archery, Country and Western Line Dancing” and a 10 metre shooting gallery.

The cut was quite quiet with just a handful of boats coming the other way. By not long after eleven we were working down Trentham lock and on our way to a mooring at Barlaston. I noticed that the 48 hour mooring restriction totems have gone from the Wedgwood moorings, though whether that’s deliberate by CRT or not is another matter, of course.

We’ve had a quiet afternoon – Sally in particular is feeling very worn out after all this locking supervision.

Tomorrow, merrily on to the top of Stone, so just the Meaford four to work in a truly short day’s cruise.


Location:Barlaston

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