Norbury to Adderley.

You just could not fault the Met office.  They said it would rain all night and up to approx 9am and it did!  I awoke at 0645 to the sound of rain hammering on the roof and cratch cover.  But the forecast was for this to clear, and it did!

By 0930 we were off.  As we passed the wharf we spotted N.B.Waiouru I think having a pump out and exchanged bloggers greetings as you do. It was still not what you would call warm and the cloud persisted, but it was getting better. This section of the canal is again mainly straight with none of the twists and turns that exist on other canals. We were soon in Grub street cutting with its wooded banks and as we left this for more open terrain, the famous (in canal circles) Anchor Inn was upon us.

Has to be the most photographed telegraph pole

Cloud covering the top of the Wrekin

I had quite forgotten just how extensive some of the linear moorings are in this area. We seemed to chug for ages in tick over past all the moored boats. That said, we saw few moving at all today at all.

As there are many lock free miles we soon made up ground. The sun started to peak out and gave us some stunning views across to the west. After navigating Woodseaves cutting with three boats to squeeze past, by mid day we arrived at the top of the five Tyrley locks. Once again, they were easy and we had soon descended. We did notice a considerable flow of water down the bywashes though, possibly due to the heavy overnight rain.

We had decided to stop and shop in Market Drayton and soon found an available visitor mooring. Walking into the town centre showed little had changed since we were last visiting, shops closed and a surfeit of charity shops. The recession has for some reason bitten deep here. Anyway, we managed to purchase what we wanted and I got a full head scalp! Hair and beard was getting a tad long...
The big mistake of the day was getting a tray of chips each, mine with curry, Ali's with peas. They were delicious, but the portions were huge and we were well podged.

Once we had waddled back to the boat we decided to move on. As you do, we had noted some good moorings at the top of Adderley locks on a previous visit and so headed for these. This section will forever on be known to us as "Kingfisher Alley". There were just so many darting along and across the canal. Ali managed to get a few good shots of individuals, but it was the sheer numbers of them that surprised us.

We followed one bird right to the moorings at the top of the locks and attempted to moor up. No joy due to the "Shroppie shelf". We just could not get close to the bank and a night with the base plate grinding on the stones was not appealing. So we started to descend this flight. There is a cracking farm shop at the top and we purchased a few items leaving the payment in the honesty box. That places like this exist is one of the joys of the canal.

It was really negotiating this flight of five locks that we appreciated just how much water was flowing . It made negotiating the flight "interesting". We did not see another boat moving as we progressed down. At the bottom of the locks the moorings were bathed in late afternoon sunshine and it was here we stopped. The forecast for tomorrow is not good and so we may stay here and let the rain pass before negotiating the  15 locks that are the Audlem flight.

Miles 15
Locks 10