One long day

So with the threat of rain fast diminishing from the weather satellite app that David actually pays money for; 

(He's very sniffy about weather apps in general and has active and ongoing discussions with other golfers who try to tell him there is a 20% chance of rain so it is going to rain for 20% of the day)!

Anyway back to Penkridge and a warm but cloudy day off we went.  I know we've had great fantastic luck in the past with locks on flights all in our favour but today was not one of them and I had to turn every lock from here to Gailey.

The journey here was pretty much incident free, but the sun came out properly, fleeces were removed and sun cream applied.

We didn't pass any boats moving and only saw a boat move when we came up into Gailey and he moved off the water point when we moved onto it.  Happy sunny days with hardly any boats moving and finger crossed the choice of moorings.

One photo that I didn't remember I'd taken.  Its the "Narrows" between Coven Heath and Autherley Junction,  we didn't meet any boats, for once.

As the day wore on our destination kept being put back by the man in charge of logistics....  The reason he gave was that as we have done the section from Autherley Junction to Great Haywood quite a few times now as we have come down the Shroppie, so his thinking was to bat through as quickly as we can and then enjoy the rest of the Staffs to Worcester canal which very much lies past Autherley Junction.

We passed by the two boats who had been following us yesterday, they both moor at Coven Heath.  We kept going, past the junction, here one boat passed us...  

Past the Wolverhampton Flight, no boats in sight but the flight looked to be open.  It's curious but here the water in the canal becomes clear.  You can see the roots of the water lilies and grasses growing on the bottom.  Looks clean enough to swim in frankly.

But I didn't.

Finally Compton lock came into view, two boats moored above and little other mooring available so we had to do this lock.

No spaces below this lock, in fact a long NB was tying his ropes so we had just missed that spot.  

I had it in my minds eye to go past this lock and around one corner where it opens out with trees in the distance and a grassy meadow.  But David stopped and moored up on the very end of the visitor moorings and staked the front. Bit concretey but we were on.

David put the tonneau cover on as rain was forecast and as we were putting things away a 70' boat from the very beginning of the mooring was leaving.  You'd have thought he might have said hang on 5 mins and have this space, I would have done so.

Today had taken almost eight hours to get here.  Supper was quick and hot but I can't remember what...

That night having an early night I listened to two owls arguing loudly, fantastic, we don't get owls at home.

Finally and with his wife tired and sleepy we arrived at