Another early start today as we had lots of locks to go through but the sun was shining, probably the best weather to date. Very warm and lots of sunshine. We left Coxbank at around 7.30 as we had at least 11 locks ahead of us and maybe two more to contend with. All single locks but good luck was in our favour as there were quite a few boats coming up the locks which meant that they locks were all set in our favour. I even managed to miss one altogether as the crew from the boat below opened the lock for us. The plan was to stop at Audlem village for the day but as the locks were not too difficult we decided to stop at the village and get some provisions and then do the remaining locks. The sunshine had brought out the best in people as everyone was smiling and chatting as we went through the locks. The village of Audlem was lovely, lots of local shops, butchers, fishmongers. A real old fashioned English town. There was also a canal shop which sold loads of lovely pictures and I managed to get two lovely cross stitch patterns, one of Great Haywood Junction and one of Braunston. This will keep me happy through the winter months. When I got back to the boat the Shroppie pub was full with Gongoozlers as we went through the next lock, thankfully all went well. We had planned to stop at the next available visitor moorings after the locks but a lovely lady told us that if we went on to bridge 83 there were lovely moorings with picnic tables so we decided to make this our stop. We passed Overwater Marina which looked really nice with loads of visitors at the cafe. We finally got to our mooring overnight and it was the busiest mooring to date but in a lovely country setting with a picnic bench and BBQ stand for boaters to use. Once we settled we had a lovely afternoon out on the towpath with pate, pork pie and a glass of vino. The Shropshire Union canal certainly improved today and hopefully it will continue to improve as we weave our way towards Middlewich.
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