For some reason, we were awake before 5.00am so decided to poke our heads up to see what the sunrise was like. It had dropped down to 10c so we had the lovely effect of mist on the surface of the water.
It was our last morning in the marina so made use of all the facilities before heading out.
Once we had dismantled Miles and Karen’s beds and stored it away and then had our breakfast, we were out of the marina at 10.00am.
Miles had spent a lot of time as a kid with his granddad on the Thames on his boat so had plenty of experience of waterways and steering a boat.
Straight out of the marina, we did three locks on the Droitwich Canal and then turned left onto the Worcester and Birmingham canal.
We had a further 12 locks which we managed to complete by 2.00pm and before the heat of the day settled in. The forecast was for 29c – truly ugly.
The volunteer lock keepers told us to check out the moorings at the Queen’s Head pub as they were the only moorings before you start the Tardebigge flight.
We don’t intend to start that flight until tomorrow so as soon as we saw some space at the moorings we grabbed it. The pub was just buzzing. Not always a good thing to moor outside a pub as it can be very noisy late into the evening. We went over and booked in for dinner but were not able to get a booking until 8.30pm tonight – oh well, you take what you can get.
Drama on the canal. Some people had lost a little dog from the pub earlier in the day and were getting frantic. We had heard what sounded like a little dog screaming a bit further up the canal but on the other side. Fraser and Miles went over there but the dog wouldn’t respond to their calls plus the bramble was so thick and nasty that they couldn’t get to wherever it was. Three people turned up and as soon as the lady called out the dogs name it started howling again so we could locate it. Her partner dove into the canal and managed to extract it from the thick brambles at water level. It was one very lucky little dog and ecstatic owners. A deed well done.
Dinner was well worth the wait as our dinner was extremely nice. Back to Ange to settle in for the night and be serenaded to sleep by the inebriated belting out ABBA and butchering a number of other golden oldies. Fortunately, the pubs are only open until midnight.
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