Harecastle Tunnel

A misty mystical morning today at Barlaston on the Trent & Mersey Canal, we’re well and truly on our southward journey. Once the mist lifted it was one of best days we can remember in a long time. This evening we’re moored in the middle of nowhere, just north of Weston with the west coast main line train way over the field.

There were 4 boats travelling through the Harecastle Tunnel yesterday, we were second in the line. The fourth boat was Freespirit, we met Ian and Irene last year and travelled a bit with them.  The tunnel is about 1.5 miles long and nowhere as leaky as I thought it’d be. For a change it was a lovely sunny day. We had to queue to get down the 5 Stoke locks, however, the hire boat behind us full of Aussies were very keen to assist us. In the interest of water conservation we ended up waiting at most locks for boats going up the locks. With all the amount of water that’s fallen out of the skies I’m not sure we need to be fussed about the water levels, but it’s polite and considerate on the ascending boat.

Harecastle Tunnel heading south

Leaving the tunnel

 

Yarn bombing in Barlaston

We had a lovely circular walk up through the Wedgwood estate. It was quite sad to see Wedgwood & Barlaston stations are both closed. We use trains fairly frequently since moving aboard and some of the small towns and villages we've been to actually have TWO stations eg New Mills, Derbyshire and Burscough, Lancashire. In addition the huge Wedgwood College, a complex of buildings and large amount of land are for sale, I guess they aren’t training up the specialist potters. We had been back a few minutes from our walk and the heavens opened again.