Fradley

 Yes the sunset did herald a better day, a beautiful day in fact.  We had beautiful countryside to cruise through (although the skipper, who hogged the tiller most of the day, was heard to have the occasional mutter about the shallowness of the canal in places!)

Sadly we passed friends Tina & Klim aboard Brindley in the most inconvenient spot.   There was not a suitable bank to pull into to stop and have a catch up and they were hotly pursued by two more boats.  They told us later they would have been able to stay another night at Fradley which was our destination.....had they but known where we were......they should have looked at my blog for our position!!

We passed this garden with an alternative to garden gnomes!!

We turned left at the junction and went up the two locks.   It had been very quiet boatwise all day but after we were safely moored in an idyllic spot (just above the top lock) we had a steady stream of boats from both directions.   However there were no long queues for the locks such as I have just been reading about in Waterways World.  Fradley is one of the places mentioned, there is even talk of boat rage with someone jumping the queue...tut tut!

We decided on a pre supper pint (1/2 cider in my case!) in the Swan and needless to say Barney came too.

Total distance:4.93 miles 

Elapsed time:2h47m10s

Locks:2

Bridges:18 
Average speed:1.77 mph (2.13 lock/mph)