14th April 2020 Join us as we continue our journey to the end of the Ashby Canal. We pass through the crooked Snarestone Tunnel, the only tunnel on the Ashby, where the village sits on a ridge at right angles to the canal. After the tunnel there are two more stone bridges before we come to the end of the navigation for us. Here there is a winding hole and boaters facilities which we use before mooring in front of the last stone bridge. Unfortunately the little swing bridge was double locked so we couldn't access the moorings past it. These are owned by the Ashby Canal Association and are in the extended part of the Canal. The little boaters shop by the bridge was sadly closed due to Covid 19, but perhaps we'll return at a later date to check it out.
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14th April 2020 We are nearly out of water, except for one washing load which I’ll be doing on the way to the water point and our toilet tanks are full so today, we travel the 5 miles to Snarestone. We had some beautiful footage on this part of the journey so decided to split the cruise into two videos to share with you. In Part 1, we leave our mooring by Bridge 49, near Congerstone. It was a beautiful spring day with a chill in the air, we pass through Shackerstone where Shackerstone Station and the Battlefield Line is home to a small railway museum and a depot for preserved steam locomotives. (More about this later on our return trip), here we see our first spring lambs of the season and cruise through some lovely woodland to a chorus of bird song! 8th April 2020 We have stocked up with supplies and continue our journey northwards on the Ashby Canal. It's a beautiful spring day, really warm and the first day that Pat even considered wearing shorts! We stop to fill our water tank at Bridge 42 and pass Andrew and Julia on NB Lingalonga who are moored near Bosworth Marina, before meandering through some beautiful countryside and mooring north of bridge 49 at Congerstone. We moor here for a week, but there are no shops in the nearby village and considering its proximity to the village the tow path is remarkably quiet. 24th March 2020 We arrived at our mooring beside Ambion Woods and stayed for 2 weeks, during this time we cycled up to Market Bosworth to the small Co-op store in the village. This was a trip of approximately two and half miles. Andrew and Julia on NB Lingalonga have been moored in front of us about 3 boat lengths away and we asked if they needed anything and they supplied us with a short list of essential requirements. It wasn’t a bad ride, slightly uphill on the way there ,but Market Bosworth was quite a pretty market town largely unchanged since the 18 century. It was such a shame to see everything closed , except the small Co-op. Unfortunately we must have gone on a bad day as a lot of stock was depleted and although we managed to get Andrew and Julia’s stuff , they had no fresh meat and very few vegetables. The next day I phoned the farm shop located beside Bridge 25 and ordered a good supply of meat and vegetables and the following day we cycled the 3 miles to pick it all up along with a short list from NB Lingalonga. 6th April 2020 Despite our visit to the farm shop we were soon in need of a larger supermarket, so today we take a very short cruise passing the site reputed to be where in 1485 Richard III met his demise to Henry Tudor who thus became Henry VII. (More about this in a later vlog/blog!) We tried to moor opposite the farm but the canal was just too shallow so we ended up mooring at the Battlefield moorings just pass Bridge 35. At first we didn’t feel that comfortable here, we don’t know why and couldn’t explain it but once we had moored up and had some lunch we become more comfortable with it. That afternoon we got the bikes out only to find mine had a puncture ( it turned out to be a leaky valve ) so Pat had to change the inner tube. We walked back to Bridge 35 (as the tow path was so uneven) and then cycled the 4.5 miles to Morrisons at Hinckley. Again they were a bit short on fresh veg so we returned the following day and picked up more supplies. While here we also found another lovely little farm shop by Shenton Aqueduct, so picked up some more lovely fresh meat! |
August 2021
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