We went for a walk (in the doom & gloom) round Shobnall Marina yesterday…
It’s not a very impressive place, all the boats there look like they’re in a queue waiting to go in the boatyard.
Not too keen on the view of the brewery at Burton either…
Tight security here, the traffic cone says:
“Moorers only beyond this point…”
Just one step down & an intruder is free to roam!
Nice coy carp pond though, this one was asking to be fed…
It has it’s advantages though:
- For narrowboats the boatyard’s cheaper to use than here at Mercia.
- The cafe’s nice.
- There’s a strange air of “cosiness” about it. Every marina seems to have character, be it good or bad, just like a boat.
Shobnall has a boatyard we could never use though, (not that we’re bothered). “Dallow Lane lock” is the first of several narrow locks along that stretch of the Trent & Mersey. Too narrow for a widebeam to get through. We’d have to turn at Horninglow Basin before then.
I’ve often wondered why they they built wide canals for broadbeam working boats & then stuck the odd narrow bit in! The Leicester Line of the Grand Union is the same, wide till it meets the Grand Union. It doesn’t make sense (again, not that we’re bothered). It’s just an observation…
The Leeds Liverpool is a wide canal without any narrow sections, not sure about all of the Bridgewater canal. But we can get up there if we turn left out of the marina. In fact we could go for miles & miles that way if we wanted to. Even up onto the Leeds Liverpool itself, (our old stomping ground), more than enough for us!
We met a guy on the towpath yesterday, he had some problems with his narrowboat & wasn’t happy with the cost. He asked us if we were moored up nearby, we told him we had a widebeam, so no. Then he said “Ah but the space on a widebeam more than makes up for it doesn’t it?” SPOT ON, so it does…
