Friday 20 September 2013

Two days to Atherstone

Friday 10th September 2013
Yesterday we decided to move despite the  forecast, it hasn't been too accurate recently. The sky didn't look very bad as we set off, but we were always aware that it might all turn nasty.
We managed to get as far as Nuneaton before things got nasty, so we found a nice looking piece of the towpath and tied up.
Later the weather improved slightly and I took a wander into town for a nosey around. I managed to get a couple of piccys of local buildings that caught my eye.
The town hall has, what I think is a rather incongruous entrance to the rest of the building.

This United Reformed Church looks quite Gothic to me.

This morning, with the weather set to be dry all day, we set off to see how far we would get. I had already checked out Springwood Haven, the home of Valley Cruisers, for their price on fuel. It sounded quite reasonable so we planned to stop and fill up.
When we arrived there were two boats ahead of us waiting for service so I took a look around their shop. It turns out that they are a main dealer for Victron. We've got a Victron inverter, and I've always fancied having the interface lead that connects a PC/laptop to the inverter. It was in stock, and has come down in price to a point where I had to have it. This allows me to check and change the settings of the inverter/charger without having to mess around with the DIP switches inside. It also monitors the performance of the unit. I've had a go with it tonight and have already found one of the settings needed improvement.
Finally we got onto the fuel point, and we took on just over 300 ltrs of fuel. Lyra is now very heavy at the stern.
We continued cruising along the Coventry Canal to Atherstone Locks. There were volunteer lock keepers on duty here, and they were doing a great job assisting boats through the flight. It was fairly busy, and we only came down 5 locks, but we passed boats at all of them. We've stopped just below lock 5 for the night, and have already raided the local Co Op for some milk and fruit.
Small rant before signing off: This thoughtless boater has moored a breasted up pair on a corner, with a bridge hole. Later I think I found an excuse - he's also a fisherman, say no more!

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