Tuesday 30th October. Red Bull to Bucknall on the Caldon Canal. 9 miles, 6 locks, 1 tunnel, 1 junction

Cold! Ice inside as well as out in the morning and the central heating failed! We had changed over cylinders the day before and the new one just wasn’t producing enough pressure to run the central heating – it on just about produced a kettle of boiling water for the tea. It reminded me of my early childhood – dressing in bed! Just after breakfast Chris had the sudden thought to change the pipe to the new cylinder and hey presto, central heating.

We motored off about 20 mts to the pump out and water tap then half an hour later up the first lock which luckily had given enough time for the ice to melt around the lock. Then it was the tunnel and we had to wait an hour for two boats already in to finish before going through. Tomorrow is the last day its open so we didn’t have a lot of leeway with our schedule. Then it was then a repeat back up the Trent Mersey to the Etruria junction in Stoke where we were turning left onto the Caldon Canal.

The Caldon Canal is essentially an arm of the Trent Mersey and it was built around the same time to bring lime from Leek and Froghall needed for pot making in Stoke. It was the last canal to be used commercially with regular lime transporting narrow boats working up until 1995. The junction is at

Eturia, home of Josiah Wedgwood and site of his pottery until the 1930’s when it was moved because of heavy subsidence from Coal Mining. It is an area which has enjoyed a great efforts from Stoke Council in regeneration. It is also the home of a big museum concentrating on grinding bone, flint and stone using steam powered Victorian machinery which we will visit on our way back as it is only open weekends.

The first locks were a pair of staircase locks and there was a Black Prince going up when we arrived. They had just picked it up 30 mins before!

We had intended to moor in a park but when we arrived it was quite early and the park was a bit too urban for our dogs so we moved on a few miles more to a more countryside location. Not country wild enough to exclude the risk of fireworks though! And its not even Halloween yet.