It’s good to be on a canal again, but it’s fairly uniform agricultural land with occasional villages. The towpath has mainly hawthorn hedge, with occasional breaks to views.

One other uniform thing are the massive 14′ deep wide locks. Some present a real challenge for Hazel, and I climb out of the lock on a slimy ladder to give her a hand. She’s very good scrambling across the lock to open 2 ground paddles and 2 gate paddles as we are going upstream for the next couple of days. Luckily CRT volunteers did the last one, promising and delivering a “smooth” ride.

Long lost relatives at Swankstone Junction ? We passed a couple from WA earlier.

We are moored outside of Burton upon Trent tonight, hoping to blast thru tomorrow weather permitting. It’s looking very dark and grey at present……