A recommended mooring

This mooring just short of Hopwas Hays Woods, aka Whittington Ranges, is highly to be recommended. We now have several neighbours, and there's been an enormous amount of traffic, but it is Easter weekend, even if it has turned a bit cool ad cloudy today.

We took a walk this morning, over the first bridge into the woods, had a bit of a wander round up and down dale, then found the track that leads to the second bridge out of the woods, and so back along the towpath. According to the Garmin, it was just under two miles, but one could easily extend it by going deeper into the woods.

The ranges are still used on occasion, but not very often as far as I know, and they would make a brilliant dog running place. Just hope the pooch doesn't come trotting back with a cylindrical object in its mouth...

Back at the boat, we pottered about doing various jobs. I checked the engine, and found that the fuel pipe joints I tightened the other day were still leaking just very slightly, so nipped them up a tad more. As I understand it, they are the sort of joints that shouldn't be overtightened, so I'm being a bit cautious.

I also turned to and gave the bathroom a good clean, and earlier on, we'd checked out the PMR radios. These had misbehaved themselves the other day when we were using them navigating the Armitage Tunnel. I thought I'd put fresh batteries in them at that time, but it may be that the ones in question (rechargeables) had been sitting in the box too long after being charged.

With fresh batteries in, I walked away from the boat with one radio, checking in with Sheila sitting in the bow with the other set every 100 metres or so. They performed perfectly well after a quarter of a mile of this, so it looks as if it was a combination of tired batteries and the rocky terrain that gave us bother. This is reassuring; the radios are around ten years old, so it wouldn't have been completely surprising if they'd begun to fail a bit.

After lunch, we spent a good bit of time sitting out in the bow. Although quite cloudy most of the time, it was pleasantly warm. Chalfont came past, with a reader of this blog in the bow (great to see you) and a steerer wearing a WRG tee shirt.

Coming in the opposite direction was Guelrose, with Mike Moorse in the bow entertaining what looked like grandkids, and what had to be his son steering. They were soon back, having just gone to the winding hole; Mike said he needed the boat turned round to clean the other side, but it looked like an excuse for a tootle down the cut to me.

Tomorrow, we'll carry on to Sutton Road Bridge, and do some badly needed restocking at Sainsbury's.