Day 25 proved to be a lucky day. It started cold but beautifully sunny.

We wanted to try to get on today and the gods were with us; we had a number of lift bridges to go through and were lucky enough to be waved through a number of them.

We saw some Graylag goslings which we cant remember having seen before, we have seen the adults a number of times but never the youngsters.

We had a brief walk into Whitchurch after lunch and then moved onto Grindley Brook locks, six locks three of which are a staircase. We got well and truly thumped  just before the locks who by someone who couldn’t wait for us and the boat in front of us to get passed some moored boats. We didn’t have to wait for the locks which was great.

Day 26 and again we wanted to get on. Unfortunately we were obviously following another boat through the first few locks and they were set against us and even when we did see other boats coming the other way the locks were still against us. However we still made good progress. Dave saw a Kingfisher. After lunch we caught up a single hander and a boat with a traditional engine, a very nice tug, so a very heavy boat. J helped out the single hander and then at the next lock the single hander and J had to help the tug which had managed to get itself stuck on the edge of overspill and did not seem to be able to get off again. Finished the day back on the main line of the Shropshire Union canal; it is nice to get on a deeper canal with no flow.