Stone to Bridge 104, Barlaston (Trent & Mersey Canal)

Tuesday 2nd August

Hanley Shopping Centre

We stayed put today as the weather forecast was not too clever and we caught the bus to Hanley Shopping Centre, Stoke on Trent.  The bus stop was just up the road from the canal, about a five minute walk.  We had a walk around the shops then found a Bon Pan Asian Buffet Restaurant in the shopping centre and thought we would give it a go for lunch as it was really busy and we were glad we did, it was excellent and at a good price £7.99 each.  The quality of the food was really good, probably the best buffet we have had in a long time, unfortunately the service was not up too much as when you go in, you pay there but the two at the desk didn't really speak to us and the chap that showed us to our table didn't ask us if we had been before or tell us what to do, he just sat us at our table and left us,but that aside it was great. 

Suitably full, we had another walk around the shops then got the bus back.  We are off tomorrow.

Monday 1st August

Tiled Seat in Stone by Canal

In Star Lock

Statue of Christina by Bridge

Passing Old Brewery in Stone

We are on the move today and we have 8 locks to do so we set off fairly early and stopped at the water point then into the Star lock by the pub of the same name.  There was a boat in front so I had to empty the lock first.  We were soon through there and onto the next one.  The boat in front was a hire boat and he insisted on getting the boat as near to the lock entrance as he could then got it stuck!  Eventually he went into the lock and I went up to help.  The girl started to wind up the paddles but the bottom gate flew open so I ran to shut it, then the other flew open, she started to come down as well but I told her to stay up that end and when I got the gates closed to open the paddle a bit to shut the gates. She wacked it open and then went to do the same with the gate paddle so I did mention that you should wait a bit before doing the gate paddle as they are very fierce but I don’t think she was very interested! 

Into another lock we go

Soon it was our turn and we stopped at the services to get rid of rubbish, etc, then into the next lock. There was a steady flow of boats coming down so that made life easy.

Working up the Meaford Flight

We chugged on along the canal and soon we were at the Meaford flight of locks, four of them, we didn’t take too long to get through the flight and then that was our locks done for the day.

 

Our friends saying Hello

We were soon at Barlaston and went past The Plume of Feathers pub which is apparently now owed by Neil Morrissey and chugged on a bit before we moored in a nice open spot before Bridge 104.  There were young cows in the field opposite and they all came down to the water’s edge to say hello.

Trentham Shopping Village

We saw on Google that there was a Trentham Estate not too far away with Trentham Gardens and a shopping centre so we set off to find it.  We walked up the road and shortly came to a golf course which said there was a public path running through it, diagonally across it but we couldn’t really see it and there were a lot of golfers about so we walked around the edge and eventually came to the club house and got out on the road. The reason there was a lot of golfers was there was a European Tournament on.

Trentham Estate Sign

We walked down the road to the roundabout and then we came to the Shopping Village.  It was really good, lots of shops in Wooden Lodges. There was a deli/Farm Shop called Brown & Green which was fantastic but we restrained ourselves from buying much as our fridge is full at the moment but we did buy some Cheshire Gin called Hunters so we will look forward to trying that.

Pieminster Shop

We had a good look around and there was a also a Pieminster shop and café (Ian you would have loved it, not only could you buy the pies to take away but you could sit in the café and eat them there).

Brown & Green Deli

There was also a garden centre there and as we all know how much Kev loves garden centres!  We went in for a look and I have to say that it was the biggest garden centre I have ever been in, it was huge and there was even a sort of Roman temple in the middle with a trough of water running through the store.

We then began the 2 mile trudge back to the boat.  We walked the road this time just to be sure we weren’t hit by flying golf balls.  We got back to the boat and chilled out.  We also found a house just up from the canal selling free range eggs, £1.70 a dozen so we got some of them.  The walk was not far short of 4 miles so I just flaked out for the rest of the evening, but it was a good walk.

We are now staying here for a couple of days.

Moored at Bridge 104, Barlaston