Church Lawton to Harecastle Tunnel Southern Portal.

 

Hi Folks.

We had another early start with the sun coming up over Mow Cop.

It was a chilly, calm start to our day as we crept past Graham on NB Suits Us, not even Jess and Tilly barked as we passed by.

It had been 5 years since we saw Graham, and it was lovely to catch up with him and his life. Sadly his other dogs Meg and Max had both died, but he is now blessed with Jess and Tilly. We will hopefully see him again soon.

We had a pleasant run up through the Red Bull flight this morning, despite only one lock being in our favour. As we climbed the flight of locks the mist was rolling along the surface of the water.

We arrived at the northern portal of Harecastle Tunnel at 7:30am, so plenty of time for a coffee and round of toast and marmalade, which I made.

We waited for the 8 boats to come through from the other end, with the first boat coming out at 8:40am and the last boat appearing at 9:00am. With three other boats behind us, it took us 45 minutes to get through, despite the fog in the tunnel, Keith couldn’t see no more than about 10ft in front, someone behind was making a lot of smoke, which was being dragged our way by the fans. We moored up at the southern portal, on a nice deep water mooring, which is usually very quiet. After a coffee and a chat to the tunnel keeper, we strolled up into Tunstall and when I say up, I mean up, because it certainly worked the calf muscles. Tunstall is  a very pleasant town with lots of cheap charity shops, just what we like.

 

Lunch was eaten at Betty's Diner and it was absolutely scrummy.

 

The owner of the diner loves Betty Boop. The place is full of Betty Boop things. I know my friend Tina would love it.

Keith and I both had a large all day breakfast, which came with 3 slices of toast each and a coffee all for £3.89, such a bargain and it went down nicely. We walked it off on the way back to the boat, despite it being all down hill.

After a coffee to revive ourselves, I went out with my camera and took a few flora and fauna snaps, which can be seen on my other

blog.

We have a half decent TV signal, so can at least watch the news. Tomorrow morning we will have the run through Stoke for our final early morning start this week, our hope is to be in Stone tomorrow.

 

Chat soon xx