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Great Haywood Junction - We are about to turn left up the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

Great Haywood (Bishton) to Penkridge

You can tell we have Richard with us, all the pictures - I find it hard to take pictures and steer at the same time, mind you I find it hard to steer at the best of times, as I am always looking at the scenery, rather than where I am going, and there is a lot to see today.

We start with Shugborough Hall, then we are into Great Haywood, to the junction, and we have to remember to turn left for  the "Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal". It was not quite that simple, Great Haywood was chockablock with boats on the move by 10 am. Had to wait ages to get to the lock, to make things fun, there was only room to hold a pair of boats near the lock, the rest had to wait half a mile away due to (legally/correctly) moored boats in-between.

Views coming into Great Haywood - select a picture to see it full size

Once we had managed to get through the lock, we were quickly on to Great Haywood junction. Had to wait for boats coming out, slowly put a nose round, with Richard sticking his nose even further out to see if the way was clear.  On getting under the bridge a boat coming the other way indicated it wanted to go in to the boat yard on our right. We pulled in to the bank on the left. (there was another boat trying to squeeze out.) To add to the fun another boat tried to join the fun by squeezing under the bridge and come through. We eventually all managed to go in the direction we wanted to go.

Great Haywood Junction - Tixall Wide - Mobile Home Stafford

We were soon passing Tixall Wide, an area of extra wide water, there are two reason mentioned in the guide books; 1. The land owner wanted some thing special if he was to allow the canal to come through. 2. The wide is a natural occurrence and they just put the canal through it, take your pick.

We are soon skirting round Stafford, probably seeing the best parts of it. We went past a mobile home estate, it was amazing, they were all looking very well looked after, and the gardens down to the canal, were some of the best we were to see over the whole holiday. It felt like they spent more money and time on them than any thing else.

Lunch time stop (Baswich) - just a bit further on - select a picture to see it full size.

We pushed on to Penkridge after lunch, managed to find moorings in the town? Mind you we stopped early. To celebrate and because we thought we had worked hard for the last few days we decided to eat out. So about 6pm we took a walk out into Penkridge, looked round and decided on which pub to go to. It was a nice evening out, and I was allowed to have pudding.

We got to the boat quicker than we left as we new the way. We settled down to a bit of reading and then bedytime drink and so to bed.