As I mentioned, we have been waiting for a while now for the river section at Alrewas to open. I have been looking at the government monitoring station and the water level was on the way down quite consistently, and yesterday (10 Oct 2019) the level dropped below the flood line on the chart. So I turned to twitter!!
I tweeted (that sounds so effeminate) the CRT boffins and asked them what the situation was with the section. About an hour later, Bess replied telling me that it was now open, and proceed with caution status – so we decided to go for it!!
What a long sail that was! 11 Miles with 11 locks, some of which are really stiff. Wendy had hardly slept the previous night and was tired (and a little ratty), but I think all this exercise did her good. When we got to Alrewas we moored up right at the top lock and walked down to see if we had room at the water point, which is just before the river section lock. We need not have worried – the place was deserted! Not a single boat was moored on any of the 48 hour moorings and there were only a handful on the 14 day moorings. We’ve never seen it like this before! So, it seems highly unlikely that the section had just opened after over a week!! Someone has been yanking our chain!
After navigating the river section, which was calmer than when we sailed up it and way less flooded, we cracked on until we got to Branston. This is mostly to avoid mooring besides the very busy A38 which soon borders the canal after the river section and stays with it for quite a few miles, and also because Branston has a nice pub and we needed a drink!! One thing we did notice was how quiet the canal was – we hardly saw any boats in all 11 miles – so different to when we started out.
So now we have 17 days to do the 8 miles to the marina – I think we’re ok š
Artful Dodger 