South to Stoke

Well, it's got to be better than North to Alaska…

Making an eight o'clock start, we got to the north portal of Harecastle at 9.15, where just one boat was waiting ahead of us. The good news was that there was a single boat on its way north and expected in ten or fifteen minutes. We'd already done most of the prep work for the passage, so it was a case of hanging about for a while, then setting off to follow the other boat through.

Sheila made a good entry into the tunnel, avoiding the shelf that lurks underwater on the towpath side and I went below to do some computing stuff (mostly playing patience, it has to be admitted). Once well established in the groove, Sheila wound the engine up and we went at a good clip.

Twenty minutes in, she slowed right down. For a moment I thought we must have broken all records for a quick passage, but no, we were just a bit over halfway through; the problem was that the boat in front had virtually stopped.

They went on  again after a bit, but never speeded up very much, with the result that it took a good forty minutes to complete the trip.

Once out the other side, we were greeted by bright sunshine; it's quite noticeable how often the weather is different, one way or another, at the other end of a tunnel.

We arrived at the Festival Park moorings a bit after eleven, and once we'd tied, I set off to find one or other of the supermarkets said to be in the area. In the event, I found the biggest Morrisons I've ever seen, and this is how to get to it:

Starting from the Toby Carvery car park, walk up the road past the ten pin bowling alley and the mammoth Odeon. You'll see a high level footbridge ahead; cross this and turn left towards the smaller of the roundabouts.

At that roundabout, turn right into Ridgehouse Drive, and walk along it with the road on your left and the big retail park on your right. You'll cross one minor road – keep going along Ridgehouse Drive until opposite PC World, from where you can see signs of the Morrisons up ahead.

Note that the filling station is on the other side of the road, but the main store is on the right. It's the size of a moderate Tesco Extra, so good for pretty well anything you might want, grocery-wise. It takes about 15 minutes steady walking. There are all the usual other stores in the retail park, if you need anything else.

This afternoon, we made a expedition to the Royal Doulton Outlet store, and bought two more cereal bowls for the swingeing price of 87p each. The best route to that is over the footbridge before the Toby Carvery, following the footpath to the right until you reach the main road, where you turn right and walk along beside the road until you get to the store.

You can spend a lot more the a couple of quid in there if you've a mind to, so beware…

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Once you've used either of these routes, you'll see that it's possible to shorten them a bit by cutting across car parks and the like, but for a first trip, I recommend sticking to the roads.

Tonight, we'll treat ourselves to the carvery; I'm about due an evening off from cooking, I reckon.