Novel Waters

We've come on from Nantwich through Hurleston and Barbridge Junctions to Calveley. Traffic was pretty steady, which is only to be expected on this busy bit of the Four Counties. At Calveley, we wanted to top up  the water tank. Previously, this service point has been pretty quiet, but today it was heaving. We had a bit of fun even getting tied up to wait, but finally we all got sorted out and we spent a bit of time chatting to the crew of the boat ahead of us, including their Staffie and Rottweiler, both of them extremely good natured.

The delay at least meant that the washload which Sheila had running finished off, so we have set off along this stretch with the tank absolutely full. The next water point isn't until Christleton, where we plan to wind, and since the water point there is beyond the winding hole, we plan to run on what we've got now and refill when we get back here.

Sanity Again has not been this way before; our last trip even this far was in 2008, and then only as far as the top of the Bunbury staircase locks. Our last trip beyond there was before I started this blog, so to find out when I had to search back through the cruising logs we kept on the Mac in those days. Amazingly, we haven't been beyond Bunbury since July 2004, when we went down into Chester. I knew it had been a while, but was boggled to find out it was that long. That was the first year we were on board Sanity.

We had been moderately regular visitors on our shared ownership boats before that, when they were both based at Acton Bridge on the northern end of the Trent and Mersey, so presumably didn't feel the need to keep coming back once we had the freedom of the whole system.

This afternoon, we walked into Bunbury, a mile along the towpath and then another along a rather busy road. Having found the church and the Dysart Arms pub, we assumed we'd found the all there was to see, so we sampled the Cheshire Cat golden ale (me) and the Staropramen (Sheila), both very good, and walked back.

Subsequent research via Google by Sheila showed that we could have discovered several shops and two more pubs. Bunbury is obviously one of those coy villages which doesn't let you see all of it at once.

Tomorrow, we'll chug on to the Shady Oak pub beyond Beeston Castle, and then finish the trip into Christleton on Monday.