Pushing North

We set off at 9.00am and stopped off at Springwood Haven to see Kevin and the gang and also have a pump out..

Louise and John n.b Ploddin' Along were also in there having some work done, including solar panels..  We wanted to give them some good feedback on how Derwent6 had been since we had lithium batteries and solar on the roof, and how it had changed our lives living aboard.. We did have a small issue with the engine not charging the batteries when the Solar panel control unit had turned itself off when it got dark. It turned out to be a operator error, because all we needed to do was run the engine at a little higher RPM till the buck boost had kicked in, then reduce the engine revs so it was still charging, simples! 

We said our goodbyes to everyone and made our way to Atherstone, and how things had changed ..

It felt like a new canal with some of the new features, including a new marina, on the way..

It didn't help that it was a bit overgrown but that gave the canal a lot of character.

We got to the locks and were third in the queue, and on chatting to the locky we found out that last weekend they had 67 boats go through here..

We were so glad we were doing this on a Friday, and even that was busy..

We stopped after lock 5 and Al walked to the Co-Op to pick up a few things..

She wanted to go to Aldi, but it was so busy she took the less busy safer option. We carried on down the other six locks which always seem so slow to fill..

 

It felt like we had been going for 12 hours, maybe it was just the wind and sunshine in our faces, but at the bottom we just wanted to get to where we were trying to get to..

When we arrived it was packed with other boats, but we saw a gap and Del thought we could fit into it. We were too long by six inches, but the boat in front kindly offered to move for us and we got in.. Phew! 

We set up things and felt exhausted, but Al still managed to cook us both some lovely fajitas which hit the spot.. We had our quiz with the family in the evening and that was us done for the weekend..