Three Bears and Four Counties: Part two - Lots of Locks!

We had porridge for breakfast the next morning, as Grizzly said we had a busy day coming up.

'We've got some flights of locks to work up through today,' he explained to us.  'There are two nearby at Hack Green, then fifteen at Audlem and five more at Adderley - and they're all going up!'

Going up in locks is always bumpier than coming down, although you never know for sure how bumpy a lock is going to be.  Luckily, we found that the Shroppie locks weren't too bad once you were in them, because you could stay at the back away from where the water comes in, although there were bumps getting in and out due to the bywashes, which I will explain about in a minute.

Grizzly worked the first two locks at Hack Green.  We were waiting in the first one for ages and ages while it filled, then noticed that the back gates hadn't closed together properly!  Grizzly put the top paddles back down, emptied the lock and reclosed the gates more snuggly with help from another boater, but they still leaked very badly and it was still ages before we could get out.

Grizzly also did the first two locks at Audlem.  Polar and Grizzly usually like to stop here, as there is a lovely waterside pub called the Shroppie Fly ('fly' boats were the fastest narrowboats, with fresh horses kept along the canal, for instance at the stables we saw on the Middlewich Branch).  But we weren't going to do any pub visits on this trip due to the nasty virus, so Polar and Grizzly swapped over and Polar started working the locks.

The first one was quite tricky for Grizzly to get into, because there was a fierce bywash coming in alongside the bottom gates. 

Bywashes take excess water around the side of a lock from the pound above it but, if another lock higher up is being emptied, you can suddenly get a great deal of water flooding down them.  You should never let human cubs play in them because they can very quickly go from tiny little streams with almost no water in to torrents that would sweep even a grown-up off their feet.

Polar worked the locks as quickly as she could, because there were other boats moving up and down the flight with us, and we waved and cheered to encourage her.  At the top, we were all ready for lunch.

Then Polar and Grizzly swapped over again, and Grizzly worked us up the Adderley Locks, while Polar steered Uppie.  We found there were some nice moorings at the top, where we could stop overnight.

This was our favourite boat name from that day!

We had more locks to do the next day, after cruising through Market Drayton.  Polar said it was a nice small town to visit but we wouldn't be leaving our boat this time, and Grizzly told Hanley that one day, when things were safer, he would take him to visit the Joules Brewery there.

'But this time, we're just stopping for water,' said Polar.

A little way on, we reached the Tyrley Locks.  There are a flight of five of these, climbing up through a narrow sandstone gorge.  It's a very pretty sight, but the bywashes can be extra fierce!  Polar was watching them carefully, then signalling to Grizzly when the flow was slightly less.  We watched for her signal and shouted, 'Go, Grizzly, go!' when the lock gates were open, but we still got bumped around quite a lot and were very glad to get to the top.

There is a very pretty row of wharfside cottages here, so we stopped for lunch and Polar took us for a look around, while it was quiet.

Then we had to go through Woodseves Cutting.  Uppie was only allowed to go very, very slowly along here, because there have been landslips and rock falls, and some of the trees are leaning over the canal at unsafe-looking angles. You can see how deep it is from the bridge over the top!

We were rather scared small bears going through here and glad when we were out in the open again, although we found there was a huge fishing competition going on.  We didn't think that was a very good idea as, even though the fishing people were all spaced out, it would have been hard for anyone walking along the towpath to do 'social distancing' past all of them.

While we were on the embankments, we got some very good views of a high hill near Telford called The Wrekin.  Polar told us that she and Grizzly had climbed up it one day and that it was very close to Ironbridge Gorge.  

'You would love it there, little bears,' she said.  'Especially you, Hanley Bear, as there is so much industrial history to see.  We can't get there by boat - the River Severn isn't safely navigable that far up now, although it used to be, and there aren't any working canals that go there, although we'll see where there used to be one soon, when we get to Norbury Junction.'

Before that, we had another cutting to go through.  We could smell that we had been near here before, as the snowdrop woods with visited and Loynton Moss are on the banks up above the canal, but we hadn't seen the funny bridge with the telegraph pole on that visit!

Then we went past the wharf of what had been an old chocolate factory, which made us think about our tea.

Luckily, there was an Uppie-sized space on the visitor moorings at Norbury Junction where we could stop for the night.

'And we've got no more locks until we get to the little stop-lock onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal,' said Grizzly.  We think he was relieved, because some of Mr Steve's nice paintwork had already picked up some scratches thanks to those nasty bywashes!