Monday, September 19

We got up early on Monday morning to set out for Nantwich which was about 8 hours traveling time including passing through 7 more locks and under 30 bridges.

We passed through a lot of farming country & the traffic over the bridges was often quite heavy.

The canal narrows to just a few feet wider than the boat at the majority of the bridges we passed under, and the approaches to the bridge are often on a slight bend. As a result we have to slow down a lot and take extra time to line the boat up before passing under.

Fortunately we only met boats coming the other way a few times & there was enough distance between us that one boat could slow down to let the other pass under the bridge first.

Shortly after 3pm we stopped at The Barbridge Inn at Barbridge Junction & had a fantastic lunch & a pint, of course. The parking for boats on the canal is even closer to the pub than the parking lot for cars!

I asked our server for a draft pint of something local & she asked me where we were from. I replied “London, Canada” & the two couples sitting at the table across from us said “we’re from Stratford & Port Perry, Ontario”. They were on a narrowboat as well & headed back to a marina in Wales where they had picked up their boat the week before.

It never ceases to amaze me how small the world can be sometimes!

After our late lunch we got back underway & continued our journey to Nantwich.