Sonning - the Bear on a Boat.: Bears go to Birmingham

As you may know, we bears have been on a boating adventure around the West Midlands, travelling on our human guardians' narrowboat Uplander II. In this post, I am going to tell you about how our journey began.

We began by travelling south through the spooky Harecastle Tunnel and on through Stoke-on-Trent. When the sun came out, we put on our life-jackets and boaters' belts and sat up on the roof.

We attached little Waverley to our roof basket with some ribbon, as Polar has still not worked out how to make him a life-jacket, because he is so small.

On the first day, we passed through six locks and reached the moorings near the Wedgwood Factory that Polar and Grizzly like to use. The following morning, we worked through eight more locks - four at Meaford and four more through Stone.

Of course, when I say "we" worked through the locks, I mean Polar and Grizzly did, as we are too small to wind paddles up and down or push the big gates, but we did cheer them when they did it, and we made bread and marmalade for them for Elevenses.

When we stopped for lunch, Endon climbed out to see how Uppie's garden on the roof was growing.

Polar didn't have time to paint the plant troughs but she had put some lettuces, strawberries and herbs in them, so we could enjoy fresh food on our long journey.

The lettuces and most of the herbs looked well, although the coriander plants hadn't liked being in such an exposed place after being in a sheltered greenhouse and had wilted.

"Don't worry, Endon," said Polar. "We will have curry tonight and use a lot of the leaves, then the plants can grow new ones."

The strawberry plants seemed very happy and there were unripe fruits on all of them. When Endon told us there were strawberries, and that they should soon be ready to eat, we were all very excited, as we love strawberries.

By the end of our second day, we had worked through a total of thirteen locks and passed the marina where Polar and Grizzly has bought Uppie, mooring near the big stately home Shugborough Hall. We were now onto a section of canal that the other bears hadn't explored before and I had only seen once, on my first voyage.

Hanley Bear had brought a small radio with him, so he could tune in to BBC Radio 5 for the European Cup football matches so, after tea, we all listened to the game between England and Croatia.

Hanley was thrilled when England won, but sad for Waverley, because Scotland lost their game, so wouldn't be playing any more matches.

The next stage of our journey took us through the lock at Colwich, then on through Staffordshire and over the River Trent near Rugeley on a very big aqueduct.

It was such a long time since I had been along this stretch that I couldn't really remember it, so when the other bears asked me questions about where we were, I had to look it up on the map.

After more locks we came to Fradley Junction and turned onto the Coventry Canal. None of us bears had been this way before and the last time Polar and Grizzly had come this way, they had been on their way to the Thames to rescue me!

We stopped for the night at Huddlesford, near a junction that used to take the canal right through the coalfields around Cannock and Brownhills to connect with the Wryley and Essington Canal - which was where Polar and Grizzly were going. There is just a short arm left, used as a boatyard, but some humans are working hard to try and restore it.

Polar and Grizzly went out for a walk before we set off the next morning, and they found a lost bear, who is now our friend Huddlesford. If you have a look back at my previous post, you can read all about how we helped to wash him and how he got some new clothes - and a new nose!