Shropshire Union September 2014 Day 1 and 2

We are back from another week on NB Centurion, we where very lucky with the weather with no rain until Friday night. Just Gill and I so we had no real destination in mind other than entertaining relatives for a couple of days.
Saturday.
We had a decent journey to Wrenbury from Norfolk, arriving at 1pm and loading up the boat, we had already stocked up with food the day before using the cool bags to keep things cool for the journey.
We left Wrenbury around 2pm and headed down the canal towards Hurleston, cruising for a couple of hours to get the water hot and batteries topped up. Gill operated the lift bridge near the sight of the proposed marina, there are still objection signs up but I had heard the plan was shelved for now.

Church Lift Bridge, Marina will be on the right hand side here.

We cruised down the 3 Baddiley Locks set amongst lovely Cheshire pastures before mooring on a quiet Shropshire Union Canal Society provided mooring near Swanley.

SUCS mooring at Swanley.

After a nice on board meal I opened Octobers Waterways World and discovered we got a mention and a picture of Centurion and ourselves from our May trip when we rescued 3 girls on a boat. Turns out one of the ladies in question is a freelance journalist and regularly contributes to Waterways World.

Page 40 Waterways World.

Sunday.
A light mist soon cleared on Sunday morning, so after our traditional boat fry up we set of down the Swanley locks towards Hurleston. The locks are easy to operate however I still cannot get Gill to walk over the end gates when one is still open.

Swanley Lock 1

GIll having shut one gate, has now walked round to shut
the other gate rather than risking the step over the gap.

Hurleston locks where not as busy as we have seen in the past with just a couple of boats on the way up. We exited the flight then took a right turn on the Shropshire Union towards Nantwich

Hurleston Locks.

Leaving Hurleston Locks.

We moored at Nantwich for lunch, before heading in the direction of Hack Green, now quite sunny and warm with the odd cloud now and then we pottered along, up Hack Green locks along the long wide straights typical of the Shroppie to the bottom of the Audlem flight before winding.

Straight and Wide Shroppie.

We had intended to moor at Audlem but all moorings where taken so we went past the large Overwater Marina until we found some piling to moor against rather than the concrete sections. With our deep draught the "Shroppie Shelf" really affects our boat.

We passed Petroc moored at Audlem. 

We passed another blogger moored below Audlem, NBPetroc. See - Petroc Blog

Another secluded mooring.  

Our early evening view.