Sheila & Kev's Canal Journey's on nb. Gordanneus: Stone to Sandon

Monday 23^rd August

We had a nice weekend in Stone, Saturday the weather was not good but we did venture down into the town. Sunday evening we met up with Jane, Malcolm, Sue and Brian and had a lovely evening at The Wayfarer pub eating and drinking and chatting.

Today we are leaving Stone behind us and off back down the canal.

The sun was shining as we set off from our mooring. We have 5 locks to do today and about 4 miles.

The first lock was just along from where we were moored, so I walked to the lock and had to fill it up, then I opened the gate.

Once down this lock we were on to the next one and there was a chap there letting water through the lock. He was from the boat yard below this lock and said they had a deep drafted boat going into their dry dock and so needed more water to do that. We were quite pleased we were going down as he had taken quite a lot of water from the pound between the two locks and the boats moored in that pound were on quite a lean!

He helped me with the gate then walked back to the boat yard. We got through the lock okay and stopped at the services below the lock to get water.

Once the tank was full and we had emptied the loo and got rid of our rubbish we chugged on past the old Joules Brewery and the new Joules pub, The Wharf and then we were at the next lock.

This one was against us as well so I filled up the lock and Kev brought the boat in and down he went. Once he was out, I shut the gates and Kev went on and moored up before the next lock as we needed to get a bit of shopping before we left Stone.

We walked up to the town, had some breakfast in Morrisons and got some supplies then walked over to M&S to get a few more things then back to the boat.

There were a few boats coming up the lock so we untied and moved to near the lock so that when the next boat came up we were ready to go in. Although there were a few boats waiting to come up only one lady came up to help so she did one gate and I did the other.

We were soon on our way leaving Stone behind us.

We went on along the canal passing lots of canalside properties and under a few bridges and then we were approaching Aston lock where there is a tiny house by the side of the lock, I always wonder who lives in a house like this!!

There was a boat going down in front of us and a couple waiting to come up and then another boat turned up behind us and again no one seemed keen to help anyone so when it was our turn, we did the lock on our own.

We went out of the lock leaving the gates open for the next boat to come in and went on our way past Aston Marina which is huge and has a separate entrance and exit.

It was a beautiful sunny warm day, just right for a chug.