Mark had an appointment he could not miss on Tuesday so we decided to have Monday and Tuesday as lay days doing not very much, although Mark did take the bike with him when he went to his appointment and before returning to the boat parked the car ahead of us and cycled back.
I feel that I have given the Coventry Canal something of a bad press so have included the video below to show how rural the canal is for most of its length.
On Wednesday we continued along the Coventry Canal, mooring between locks 5 & 6 on the Atherstone Flight of 11 locks. We considered ourselves very lucky to have got a mooring where we did, as it was very close to the town, close enough for Mark to take us to dinner in the canal side Kings Head pub. Thank you Mark it was very enjoyable.
Thursday morning saw us wandering through Atherstone town, and what a pleasant town it is. The high street is still full of independent shops which along with the other shopping streets was very vibrant and buzzy. For those that needed their big store fix at one end of the high street there was a large Co-Op and an Aldi.
After spending much of the morning in Atherstone we dropped down the remaining six Atherstone locks and travelled just a mile or so before mooring for the night just after Bridge 50.
Shortly after getting underway on Friday we passed through the town of Polesworth where there is Polesworth Abbey a Benedictine nunnery we fancied seeing so we moored and walked the short distance to the abbey but were disappointed that it was locked and bolted with no access during these covid times. However the graveyard along side made for a fascinating wander among the grave stones.
We almost reached the end of the Coventry Canal today, Saturday, however Fradley Junction where the Coventry Canal meets the Trent and Mersey Canal is a very busy junction and we were doubtful that we would get a nearer mooring at this time of day so we moored about a mile before the junction and around 10.30 on Sunday morning I wandered up to the junction where there was a boat getting underway, so just one vacant mooring, within minutes most of the boats moored overnight had also upped and left.
Contacting Sue and Mark they brought the boat up and we moored just yards from Fradley Junction swing bridge.
Here we were able to empty the bins and do all the other tasks necessary to boat living. Mark was planning to go home today but learning that Sue was cooking a roast duck dinner elected to stay one more night and suggested that as the National Memorial Arboretum was just 4 miles away we jump in his car and visit. The Arboretum was a fascinating place. There are road train tours, golf buggy tours and guided walking tours or you are free to wander at will around the 150 acres and almost 400 memorials nestled amongst some 25,000 trees. We opted for a guided walking tour which while interesting showed only a tiny fraction of what is there. Multiple visits at different times of the year are needed to fully appreciate what is on offer.
Oh!! and the duck dinner was superb - Thank you Sue.