With most of the Ashby Boat Company hire boats likely to return to base on Saturday we decided the top end of the canal was likely to be quiet. This seemed to be the opportune moment to start cruising back down the canal. Well the cunning plan worked and for the first half of the day we didn’t see a solitary boat. By the time we stopped for the day mid afternoon we’d only seen two Ashby day trip boats and one Clifton Cruiser.
After the exciting arrival at Snarestone yesterday where we were greeted by a TV crew and reporters waiting to interview us today’s departure was a very low key affair. Jan opened the swing bridge and we then topped up the water tank before heading south.
Bye Snarestone!
Jan managed to take a quick photo of what must have been a very upmarket residential private mooring immediately before the tunnel portal.
It’s now rather silted up.
Two observations regarding Snarestone Tunnel. It has a dogleg inside and initially I thought it was a consequence of the usual early canal engineer’s inexperience. However I’ve since read the kink may have been caused by mine subsidence? The tunnel doesn’t appear to be very deep and I wonder why the original canal builders didn’t excavate a cutting?
We were slowly cruising (tick over) past a long line of permanently moored boats at Shackerstone when we noticed what appeared to be the remains of a motte in the adjacent field.
It appears we might be right <link here> The low areas of water are medieval fish ponds.
Remembering that the canal starts to get very shallow just before Market Bosworth we decided to call into Bosworth marina for a pump out. Jan phoned ahead and was informed the pump out was £14 self service. Wind made getting onto the services mooring slightly difficult but eventually we got there. Jan had a brief discussion with Caroline (nb Sonia Louise) and then went off to the office to pay. The office looks very new. Actually the marina looks like it is thriving!
Jan returned with two tokens for the machine and told me the staff in the marina office were very friendly. She had been informed each token would run the machine for 4 minutes. I hadn’t seen this make of pump out before and was interested to see how it performed.
As our Australian friends would say “She’s a little ripper!”
We opted to insert only one token into the machine and see how much of the tank was emptied in 4 minutes. Well the bulk of the contents had been removed after two minutes. One of the fastest pump outs we’ve had to date. We spent the last 6 minutes rinsing and emptying the tank.
Just south of Market Bosworth we passed the WRG still beavering away on bridge renovations. They all looked and sounded very cheerful!
The only negative thing about mooring at Shenton Aqueduct is all the black bunnies. The place is infested with them. I took a photo of three hiding in the undergrowth at the top of the aqueduct steps.
The weather was starting to look overcast and we therefore decided to stop for the day on the northern outskirts of Dadlington.
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