Tuesday 30th May '17

Got off to an early start today - about 9.30 and put on slightly warmer clothes than we've been wearing recently.

The sky was a bit heavy and the dark and brooding hills in the distance were the ones we'd be climbing when we got to Atherstone.

We stopped for general boat type things like getting water, disposing of rubbish and emptying elsan cassette at the bottom of the locks and I took the boat into the first one at 11.10. By then the sun had come out and I'd done a quick change into shorts and strappy top.

The moss and other plants that manage to grow inside the walls of locks always fascinate me and this was a particularly drippy bit of moss still hanging in there. You'd be surprised at the number of flowers that survive just at the water line in a lock. I'll try to look out some interesting ones.

Much sunnier skies here, John is just about to take his jumper off which shows how the temperature had risen!

Then what goes and happens? Dark clouds suddenly appear and in no time are on top of us. My jumper went back on and I had to put the camera inside for a while as it was trying hard to empty on us, but luckily missed it's target. I heard another boater telling John that they'd had some rain where we were heading towards, but it missed us.

Looking up the Atherton, from about the half way point. Up to now the locks had been in sets of two with a bit of distance between them, but towards the top they are much closer and we were able to see the one ahead and in most cases leave ours open so that we passed the boat coming down and I was able to go straight into their empty one.

An unusual gongoozler! more attractive than most!

We got through the 11 locks in 2 hours and 10  minutes, not bad going for locks that take ages to fill but empty quickly. We were lucky that more boats were coming down, meaning we didn't have to waste any water emptying just for us. We rose 80' in that distance and are now on a summit that will take us past Nuneaton tomorrow.

We cruised on about a mile or so out of Atherton and have moored in the country with this view from our side hatch. We got settled just before a short shower hit but now it is dry if still rather overcast. Tomorrow we hope to get to Hawkesworthy Junction, always an interesting place to turn 180 degrees to get onto the Oxford canal. We're thinking of visiting the pub there, as we haven't been inside for years. I think it's the Greyhound, but I'm happy to be corrected.