Sunday 14 August 2016

See Gulls Over Graveley Interchange


As we sit here sipping wine, the sun is setting and the seagulls are crying. They couldn't be any further from the sea. It is difficult to imagine how the incessant roar of Spaghetti Junction might attract them.

The noise is irritating but less so than the worst case of litter/fly tipping that we've seen anywhere. The development around Cuckoo wharf consists of Princes Trust funded enterprises, no doubt part of some urban generation scheme. But there are no residential properties. Who would want to live in the literal shadow of The Aston Expressway? We are tied up in a peopleless landscape although judging by the 30 or so empty wine bottles, they have been here.

The forums said it was a haven but with no other boats, houses, flats or people, it doesn't feel that way. We'll overnight here but give it a miss on the way back. First mate's candlelit dinner of salmon and new potatoes seems incongruous.

Underneath Spaghetti Junction is Salford Junction. This is a crossroads of canals and in the gloom of the Graveley shadows Captain made a right pigs ear of the turn up towards Aston.

After a monumental (for us) 11 locks, and 5 hours at the tiller, we are tired, so these rough words and our weary bodies must tell the tale.

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