Fazeley

Coventry Canal - Atherstone to Fazeley (time lapse)

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• published: 22 Apr 2007
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From Atherstone Bottom Lock No 11 to the Visitor Moorings at Fazeley Junction is a cruise of eight and a half miles and includes the two Glascote Locks and the Tame Aqueduct. This is along the main line of the Coventry Canal before the turn at Fazeley Junction onto the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. As we were leaving Bradley Green after a quick stop for water, a single handed boat came through the bridge and gave us a most interesting demonstration of his mooring technique. Pointy end against towing path, run along side of boat and leap, rope in hand, as the boat went backwards out into the cut! At Grendon Dock we came upon a boat either winding or turning from the dock, decorated in flat grey primer along one side and green coachwork along the other. For some reason best known to himself, the skipper of this boat dawdled along the next mile or so of canal at one mile per hour, continually looking back at us, mumbling into his beard and showing no sign of letting us past. "Sod it" we thought and pulled in for an early lunch break. As we finished tying up, our good friend nb Katie of AWAY4AWHILE hotel boats, he who had followed us down the Atherstone Flight and is without doubt the FASTEST NARROWBOAT ON THE CUT, came past at warp speed 12 and informed us that he would have "No trouble moving the slow bugger in front". No doubt he would adopt the same "push 'em off the cut and up the towing path technique" he had employed passing us on the Oxford Canal the previous Saturday! A slight "not changing the tape" malfunction occurred around Polesworth, causing us to miss about a mile of canal. Surprisingly as we approached Glascote Locks and Basin we actually caught up our good friend the speedy nb Katie. This wasn't, you will understand, because we too had been traveling at warp speeds, but rather because some twat had earlier in the day left open the gates and/or paddles of the Bottom Lock thereby draining the pound. Katie's skipper informed us that when he arrived there was a queue of 10 boats waiting to go down the locks. By this time we were number three and proceeded forwards by a number of small leaps till it was our turn to lock down. Shortly after the Tame Aqueduct we had a temporary heave ho for an oncoming boat as our good friend nb Katie was now taking on board coal from a double parked working boat and reducing the cut to a single boats width. Nick's Canal Planner told us that the Visitor Mooring were to be found around the Junction at the top of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal. This wasn't entirely clear from either Nicholson's or Pearson's causing us to stop at moorings just before the Junction, where the good lady wife went off for a butchers. Nick, as always, was right. By the time we set off our good friend nb Katie had passed us once more. We made the turn and found nb Katie temporarily moored. As we started to moor, Mrs. Katie came by with shopping from the Tamworth Tesco Express, leapt aboard and off went nb Katie into the sunset at warp speed, never to be seen again. Tesco Express had gin but no tonic, so fortified with a couple of bottles of antipodean vino calapso, I had a wonderful takeaway dinner of Lamb Tikka Vindaloo with all the trimming from the wonderfully named "Spice Takeaway". The girls had Chinese.