Wednesday evening we are now back off the Ashby which we decided was like a very long country walk but without the sore feet , six days forty four miles with just the scenery to admire  . Now we have continued on the Coventry right to the very end and are moored in the centre of Coventry within a hundred yards of all the city attractions We walked down to Sainsburys this evening to get some desperately needed food supplies   . Tomorrow we hope to visit the museum of transport and the cathedral as well if we have time.
The maximum stay allowed here is forty eight hours.

Today we walked about half a mile up to what was the site of the battle of Bosworth except it is now believed not to have been and in fact was possibly a camp site with the actual battle taking place some distance away there is a very nice visitor centre there but as they wanted us to pay £16 to see an interactive display we decided to just admire the building (modern) and look at the field where the battle maybe didn't take place although it was a very nice walk through woods to get there a mix of a few hardwood and conifers ,a bit like Dalby maybe .

                                                         Lunch break on the way up

            These two are of  a beautiful cottage in Station Road Market Boswell which among the
                                  carvings in the garden had this memorial to WW1

                                      

A spiders web of con trails overhead 

We have made it to the top of the Ashby ,through the kinky tunnel without collision turned and back down to moor at Snarestone for the night A nice sunny start this morning , cruised down to Shackerston stopped for lunch and then visited the Battlefield Steam Line .
 Well worth the £1 admission fee onto the platform where apart from steam trains there was a very interesting little museum  containing thousands of small railway artefacts.  Battlefield Line.
Stopped for the night at Sutton Wharf soup for tea and now we have to do that what all boaters have to do which put simply is  fluids in and waste out  enough said .
Some more pictures tomorrow  perhaps.

Good day to day  fueled up his morning  at Springwood Haven marina , excellent place staffed by nice helpful people .
http://www.springwoodhaven.co.uk/
The day started cloudy with a cool breeze  but now has has finished with sunshine .
We are now moored at the Lime Kiln just outside Hinkley a mere five miles up the Ashby  but I had forgotten how pretty this area is cruising as slow as possible through the countryside without any locks to test the crew for over  twenty miles altogether .

We are back on Sybil tonight , we left Kms at 8.30 this morning  and two buses , four trains and a taxi later We are spending tonight in Springwood marina and tomorrow will head off up the Coventry to Marston junction and then up the Ashby to explore this at leisure .we have done it in a hire boat boat before but only had two days to get up and back down not enough time really

Blue bell woods near Atherston

                                  Our feathered friend  in Polesworth  I think he was a young wagtail
                                  he spent all his time going from window to window tapping on them

                                 These were our overnight companions whilst moored one evening

This is the lock at  Alrewas where you leave  the river behind ,  just after going under the M1 

Moored near the Anchor Inn just past Atherstone getting the boat tidied up ready for  her visit 

to Springwood marina .

 We came up the Atherstone locks last weekend with the help of Two CRT volunteers very nice people doing a grand job , it really does speed things up the only trouble is you get to where you where going sooner than planned and have to go to the  pub earlier or do something useful like cleaning the boat or taking pictures oh well .

This could have been the trials for the latest weed control system on the Nottingham canal it does appear to            be based on a ride on mower but it apparently failed due to moisture in the ignition system

                                                    Fighting our way up the Trent

                                           
                                                  A pretty view back from the Sawley cut
    

                                         

                                          Underneath the arches and into our first narrow lock

Sybil is now safely moored in a marina near Nuneaton while we travel back home for a few days the journey was first a taxi , then two trains the first a local packed solid then a better one on to Nottingham all in all a new and interesting experience , then a half mile walk to collect the car followed by a two and half hour drive home.

we think next time we go down we shall leave the car at home and  `train`it all the way straight to Nunneaton and then get home from where ever