We travelled through Harecastle Tunnel with 4 other boats this time. The tunnel warden telling us tales of people expecting him to allow them in after time and demanding to know where to expect to see the ghost and after reminding us of the break down procedure ( long blast on your horn every 30seconds until it is acknowledged by 3 short blasts by the keeper) he told us that last week someone had broken down in it's 2926 yards of long, dripping, cold gloom because they had run out of fuel........not very bright of them and not very bright of the people ahead of them who didn't offer a tow. Apparently one hour and 40 minutes later they succeeded in getting them out! I know I wouldn't want to be in there and stationary for that long....it is so spooky, like fairground ghost trains and Dickensian prisons rolled into one. We saw the skeleton man this time - just past the 475 marker on the left coming from the north end, info for those tunnel visitors who may want to frighten themselves even more witless.
We hurtled on against the wind through to the Stoke locks, where of course we caught up with our fellow tunnel travellers, none of whom, like us, wanted to spend the night in Stoke on Trent, because the canal is decidedly rough there. Consequently we had to queue at every lock. We were very pleased to moor up finally in Barleston ( Monday evening) on a pretty green leafy stretch, ready for a trip to the Wedgwood Outlet shop next morning. We have done the factory sight-see before, which was great fun, especially trying to throw a pot, haha - I used to be able to, honest! There is actually a Wedgwood train station here, although none of the 4 trains we had to wait at the level crossing for stopped! Not much help if you work there.
Blurred, but gives the atmosphere - note the red water, apparently due to iron oxide......?!
This photo makes it look lit up which of course is only because the boat following us has a good tunnel light.
Light at the end of
Family at the Wedgwood mooring
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