Day 105 - onto the Ashby Canal, home of the strange ducks.

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0 locks, 424 in total.







The Ashby Canal is an arm off the Coventry Canal, originally going to Ashby-de-la-Zouch and bringing coal into Coventry. It is a very wide canal, particularly when it didn't have a large amount of through traffic like the Grand Union. We met another boat in the only narrow and shallow part so far, of course. There are plenty of good moorings and boatyards so far; food shopping may not be so easy.







The first section was through trees and bushes and really uninteresting. Then the outlook opened up as we went through farmland – not great long views but just the local fields – and oodles of pylons and cables all around. Hinckley has a large amount of new housing, a new marina and what looks like the start of a nature reserve. Otherwise there is not much of note except for the ducks, which are many and varied – so varied that we cannot identify them. Some are all black, some all white, others a mixture, brown and white speckled, some with tufts – it's almost as though the outcasts have all fetched up on the Ashby Canal.

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Photos

Sharpness - another unusual boat.
Very low in the water and long prow and stern. Possibly a pilot boat for the Severn Estuary - looks very speedy.

Stoke Golding Wharf.
Stoke Golding village is a conservation area - it's very pleasant to walk through but many houses are for sale and the village shop has recently closed.

Some of the unusual ducks....
....will take individual pictures tomorrow as you can't see much in these.