Playtime

The warm clear weather was a bonus as we headed to our next excitement - a visit to Drayton Manor theme park and a chance to relive earlier days when young children relished the terror offered by the extreme rides on offer. Being located adjacent to the canal it was an easy visit to manage and unlike 99.9% of the visitors we could arrive on foot.

We moored opposite the park entrance just past one of the most bizarre footbridges we had yet seen.  A gothic style structure with twin battlement style towers containing stone spiral staircases,  it would have looked commanding but for its Lilliputian size. We could find no explanation for this eccentricity in any of our canal books which only increased its attraction and oddity.

 

Built on the site of the since demolished Drayton Manor house, the former home of Sir Robert Peel, the theme park was familiar to Ros. In a previous life when earning a crust as a teacher she had taken a challenging group of kids from one of her schools who were studying for one of those pretend GCSE' s - Tourism and Leisure. An experience not to be repeated I gather......

 

What fun we had, especially me. There were very few people about it being mid week and outside school holidays so we never had to queue and more often than not were the only people on the rides. Being of a certain age, the more extreme rides held little appeal as I for one have no great desire to have my stomach thrust into my mouth as I hurl upside down at great speed on some gyrating roller coaster.  We did however go for Storm Force One, a flume ride with a lifeboat theme and the kind made famous by that photo of Princess Diana at Thorpe Park getting soaked with her kids as they roared into the water from a great height.

Surviving one go without getting particularly damp, I was keen to go again as we neared the end of the day. Ros was more reluctant but after some gentle persuasion came anyway. Sitting in the same second row place as the first time as this seemed to have kept us reasonably dry we set off up the ride for the first high speed descent into the raging waters. As luck would have it this time a mini tsunami struck from Ros' side and engulfed her miraculously missing me but leaving her, as she so delicately put it, soaked to her knickers.  All my fault of course.

Back at the boat and in dry clothes we settled down for a noisy night as we may have been nice and close to the theme park, but we were also close to a busy A road. We awoke  glad to be heading off this time up the Coventry Canal at Fazeley Junction.  Shows how experienced we are now becoming with steering our weighty beast that we negotiated the 90 degree turn perfectly which was fortunate as there were spectators on the Watling Street bridge no doubt hoping to see some bumps and bangs or at least a few tense exchanges between helm (me) and look out. Harmony reigned. 

After a lock-free meander of 12 miles we arrived at another junction, this time named Fradley where after opening the swing bridge by way of announcement we turned into the Trent and Mersey canal. At the junction was a canal side pub called the Swan or the Mucky Duck to locals, which is reputedly one of the most photographed pubs in the country and rightly so as the 200 year old listed stone building graces the towpath half way up a five lock flight. It was the  first place we had visited where there was a scarcity of moorings demonstrating its popularity but we lucked in and found a spot just before the lock and well within walking distance of the pub.

 

No guessing where we went that night. Again, good hearty pub grub and two lavishly mascara'd barmaids of a certain age with plenty to say for themselves, a good knowledge of the local beers and tattoos to shame a stevedore.

The following morning after a relaxed start with much needed cappuccino at the nearby cafe we began our journey up our latest canal conquest, the Trent and Mersey, where the two locks were manned by volunteers making our progress easy. Keen to chat while leaning on the gates as the lock filled we discovered that the final lock of the five in this flight was the toughest with those stiff, heavy paddles we were learning to hate and the one volunteers desperately tried to avoid. Our poor helper had arrived late and so drew the short straw and was already looking jaded after only a couple of hours on the job. Early tea break called I suspect.

The spreadsheet had determined we had a short journey that day with only 8 miles to cover before our destination of Rugeley whose principal attraction was that it was home to an accessible launderette meaning clean clothes were on the cards. It was also the chosen spot to await the arrival of the other narrow boat groupie who was returning for a further visit, this time a moving one over a long weekend. 

Thus I was really looking forward to three days of the Turton sisters enthusiastically embracing everything narrow boaty and no doubt competing for the privilege of doing the locks.

Time to settle down below decks with that charity shop book I'd bought - Ian Rankin - nice bit of murder, just what the doctor ordered.