Friday 2nd September 2011 – Red Bull to Stoke-on-Trent

A late start today.  It’s Richard’s birthday.

Jill and I got up and went for a walk about 7am.  Back to the boat for a relaxing breakfast.

After breakfast, we set off to do 5 of the final 6 locks.  Moored the boat at Kidsgrove and went for a walk to find a coffee shop and then Tesco’s to buy a few ‘birthday’ things.  Richard had a haircut while we were in Tesco’s.  By the time he got back to the boat we had some bunting around the front of the boat (so he couldn’t miss us).  While we were in the coffee shop a couple told us that the Red Bull pub had good food so it was here we ended up for lunch.  The food was good.  Probably the best pub food we’ve had in England.

Birthday lunch at the Red Bull

After lunch, we went through our last lock and queued up for the Harecastle tunnel which runs through Harecastle Hill. Interesting that the water here is a very rusty colour – from the ironstone in the area (mined at one stage).

This is how you open a lock gate

The original tunnel was built in 1777 and boats were propelled through by ‘leggers’, men lying on their backs on the roof of the boat literally ‘walking’ on the ceiling of the tunnel from one end to the other.  It took two to three hours to travel the 1 ¾ miles.  The tunnel we were in was built in 1827 (2926 yards – 8.5 million bricks) and had a towpath enabling boats to be pulled through by horses.  In 1914 electric tugs were used.  They dragged themselves through on cables laid on the canal bed with the electric cable running along the roof.  In 1954 forced ventilation was introduced enabling boats to pass through under their own power.  The tunnel was closed from 1973-77 when it was completely refurbished, removing the towpath at the same time.

Harecastle Tunnel

There is a Tunnel Keeper at each end and they let 8 boats at a time through.  I guess there would be quite a wait if you just missed the eight from your side and had to wait for the eight to come through from the other side.  In our case, we had a 30-minute wait for five boats to come through and we were the third boat in our group.  Naturally, it’s very dark inside (you have a headlight and you switch on all internal lights).  There isn’t much room and the roof is very low so it’s quite a challenge to ‘keep on the ball’.  Fortunately, we were aware of the possibility of the doors closing and the extractor fan switching on.  Even so when this happened as we approached the other end and were appreciating the fact that we could see daylight and the trip was almost over - doors suddenly shutting out the light and the extractor fan switched on with a muted roar - it was quite an eerie experience.

After 35 minutes in the tunnel, we were in the light again and motored on to Westport Lake near Longford.  Time for a birthday cake.  We rested up for a while and Jennie and Richard went for a walk to check out dinner options – we were going out for a birthday dinner as well.  When they couldn’t find anything suitable we decided to move on to ‘China Garden’ which we were told was very good.  Even though it was just before the Black Prince depot we thought that was better than having to get a taxi to find somewhere to eat.

You can't have a birthday without a cake!

The last leg of the journey was through an abandoned industrial area.  Apparently, this used to be a huge ceramics and steel making area (Royal Doulton still has a presence here although I don’t think it’s made here anymore).  A lot of the area has been regenerated and as we got closer to Stoke there were quite a lot of new and refurbished buildings.  The power of the potteries can be seen in the shape of the canal.  Instead of running relatively straight, it snakes across the countryside, apparently in an endeavour to link up with each of the potteries.

The magpie geese are looking for their share of the cake!

When we got to ‘China Garden’ (well at least where we thought ‘China Garden’ was) we found a carvery instead – Toby Carvery.  It was a very enjoyable alternative.

As we are berthed only a few hundred yards from the Black Prince marina we should have no trouble packing up in time to deliver the boat by 9:30 in the morning.