Date - 25 Feb 09 Day - Wednesday Start - 1140 Ragley Boat Stop End - 1615 Branston Water Park
Ragley Boat Stop must have the best pub moorings I have ever used, there is even electricity hookup if you want it, good mooring rings, deep water and a hard straight edge, even lighting. Well done to them, I hope lots of boaters use it. The food was fine as was the beer and you can even get a FREE bottle of wine if you download and print out the voucher from their web site http://www.king-henery-taverns.co.uk I can personally recommend their Lamb Chops. The only down side it the railway that runs along side the towing path, this is a freight line and they run well into the night. We didn't get away this morning until twenty to twelve this morning in bright sunshine. There were a lot more boats about in this area than we have been seeing previously. At Stenson Lock there is now a tea room and we also saw the entrance to Mercia Marina as we passed by, you can't see the marina as its the other side of the road with a long access channel and a bridge. We also saw the part demolished bridge where the trailer load of muck fell in the cut. What's left of the bridge looks sound but I guess it will involve a long stoppage to rebuild it. All the long term BW moorers have been moved from Willington, I suppose this is to enable the dredging to take place through this stretch, I don't know where they have moved to as we didn't see any temporary long term mooring notices. We were only held up for a few minuets for the dredging as he had just finished filling a mud hopper as we arrived so only needed to move it out of the way before we could pass, I caught up with a loaded hopped and tug just as he reached the unloading point at bridge 25 where I passed him but had to wait for the second one who was about to swap a full hopper for an empty one, He spotted me waiting, shouted to the digger driver and then waved me through. In the same section contractors were also cutting the towing path hedges. As the afternoon wore on the weather got more overcast and the wind freshened with a corresponding drop in temperature, as we passed Branston Water Park visitor moorings we saw one spot and decided to pull in for the night at quarter past four. You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian <[email protected]> Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info
