Goldstone to Market Drayton - Shropshire Union Canal

 

Friday 24^th September

We stayed put on Thursday and met our friends Sheila and Tony for lunch, we had a lovely meal and great company, it was lovely to catch up as we hadn’t seem them for a while.  They brought their lovely dog Brock with them so good to see him too.

                                                        

                                                                                      

Today we are on the move to Market Drayton for the Ginger and Spice Festival and Floating Market.

We have a very narrow cutting to go through so we set off at 8am to get through it and hopefully not meet any boats coming the other way.

                                             

                                                                                

We came to Bridge 56 which is the start of Woodseaves cutting, it is quite impressive as it is cut out of rock and was done entirely by men without powered machines.

There have been a few landslides and although the channel is clear, the towpath is blocked in places.  There are a couple of really tall bridges in the cutting which shows you how deep the cutting is and what a job it must have been to cut through all that rock.

                                                   

                                                                                

The cutting is less than a mile and soon we went under bridge 58 leaving the cutting behind us and luckily we didn’t meet any boats.

We then came to Tyrley Wharf and the five locks which we have to go down.

                                                     

                                                                                          

There is a water point here so we filled up with water then started our descent down the locks.

There was a few boats coming up which always helps and on the second lock a chap who helps out at the locks gave us a helping hand so that was nice.

                                                       

                                                                                                 

We worked our way down the locks, these are nice locks well maintained so easy to work and they are not that deep so don’t take long to empty.

The pound between the last two locks is quite rocky and you need to stay in the middle so while Kev was sorting out the fourth lock, I walked to the fifth lock Tyrley bottom lock and filled it up as no one was coming up and got it ready for us.

                                                   

                                                                                               

I then walked back up to the lock where Kev was and opened the paddle and then when the lock was empty, I opened the gates and Kev went out and on to the bottom lock.  I closed the gates and walked down to the last lock.

There was no boats coming so when Kev was out of the lock, I closed the gates and got back on the boat.

                                              

                                                                                                    

We went on along the canal and was soon approaching Market Drayton.  We went under a bridge, over the aqueduct and then was at bridge 62.

We went past Talbot Wharf and stopped at the services to empty the loo.  While we were there our friend John and his staffie Lacey came down the steps onto the canal, it was so nice to see them again and he walks the canal every day so we will see him a few times while we are here.

                                        

 

We then went under the bridge and down to our mooring for the market.  We were originally in space 11 out of 13 boats, but one of the locks in the Audlem was broken and five of the traders were stuck the other side of the lock and it wasn’t sure when the lock would be fixed so we went in space 9 and the two boats in front of us pulled down leaving space on the end for the boats stuck at Audlem if they managed to turn up.

The lock at Audlem was fixed Saturday morning so they made it here Saturday afternoon.

We are now staying in Market Drayton for a few days for the market and also to do shopping and catch up with friends then we will be moving on to Audlem.