Wednesday 9th August 2006
Rowington - Warwick (5 miles, 18 locks)
We got up late and had breakfast sitting on the towpath, although the weather had changed overnight and there was a cold northerly wind.
We moored just before the tunnel at Shrewley and walked up the towpath into the village to visit the Post Office Stores. The path is interesting as it has its own little tunnel to reach the top of the hill. We hadn't visited this shop before, but it was very good and we will hopefully use it again in the future.
At Hatton, we collected our new house sign, which looked wonderful. Fitting that will be one of my first jobs when we get home.
We came down Hatton Locks with Water Dragon. This was a boat built to special order by Severn Valley Boats in Stourport. During the conversation, it emerged that they had had terrible problems with the builders not sticking to the specification and there had been so many teething problems, including fitting a new engine after just a few months, that the owners had only had about six weeks use of the boat since taking delivery two years ago. The problem is that most industries have strict design and quality assessment procedures nowadays, but boat building is still stuck in the past. Maybe that's how it should be.
We moored three locks before the bottom of Hatton and Jen, Lucy and I walked into Warwick, while Robert and Rosemary cleaned the inside of the boat. After our evening meal, we stayed up quite late playing daft card games.