The first half mile of our route from the Soar upstream on the Trent, to Sawley, is on a very wide section of river with dramatic views of the the cooling towers of Ratcliffe Power station on the horizon to the east.  The river then seems to scale down a bit from Sawley up to Derwent Mouth. From here we join the T&M albeit still a wide beam canal - almost unwilling to scale down any further, too quickly, from it's river start point.  For the first 10 miles or so we pass through pleasant enough countryside - peaceful until we get the railway alongside near Willington.  But from there we are soon into Stretton and Burton with the railway and the A38 never far away (the A38 is just as noisy as the best of motorways).  We need to pick our overnight mooring locations with care, but happily we need suffer such modern noise pollution for only a few hours.  Once at Wychnor we climb away from the noise and re-enter quiet countryside.  In fact between Wychnor and Alrewas we rejoin the Trent again for almost a mile - but here it is tranquil, reed lined, and barely wider than many a canal.

Many of our cruises start at Fradley Junction, from where we head North and skirt the eastern side of Cannock Chase from Rugeley through some very pleasant ‘water meadow’ countryside with the River Trent never far away. Soon we approach Great Haywood, with Shugborough Hall adjacent. Great Haywood is only a small village to those living on land, but an important canal junction town to those of us that live aboard. Here the Staffs & Worcs canal heads off south westwards to eventually reach the River Severn and then the Bristol Channel - It was a very important route in years gone by. North of the ‘Haywoods’ we start a gradual climb up to Stone, from where the canal enters the ‘potteries’.

The ‘potteries’, home of Wedgwood and Royal Doulton are sadly not the hive of industry that they were in years gone by. Only a few of the factories are still in production (eg canalside Middleport). But the canal still has interest with the albeit few remaining bottle kilns and derelict wharves. Sadly much of this industry, which brought about the birth of our canal system, has been razed to the ground. But our progress is good because the canal is deep. At Etruria the Caldon heads off eastwards, but we progress north through Stoke until we reach the Harecastle Tunnel.  No matter how often I do the Harecastle, I always find it interesting. Huge fans keep the air clean inside. There are doors at the south end which slam shut behind you. This is to force the fresh air to be drawn by the fans all the way through the 1.75 miles of the tunnel from the northern end. In one of the photos further below, see the hanging chains to ensure boats will fit through some of the sections with reduced headroom.

Almost as soon as we emerge from the tunnel, we have the option of heading off north east on the Macclesfield canal, but we keep heading due north down the ‘heartbreak hill’ flight of locks.  The term 'heartbreak is a relatively recent term - traditionally they were known as the 'Cheshire' locks.  We actually find little difficulty with these locks (much better maintained than those at Stoke). Almost immediately the scenery changes from an urban to more attractive rural canalscape. Over a very few miles we descend several hundred feet down onto the Cheshire plain. This canal used to be a very important trade route and to speed things up most of the locks (although narrowbeam) were made in pairs, to allow boats to pass in opposite directions. We have even been known to ‘go for an overtake’.  After a pleasant lock free stretch of canal north of Wheelock (pronounced willock by the old boatmen) we descend several more locks to Middlewich. Here we could turn west onto the Middlewich canal linking with the Shroppie (and 'four counties ring'). Or we can continue north on the T&M, through very attractive countryside (full of wildlife - we've spotted Barn owls), to Anderton where we can take the Anderton Lift down onto the River Weaver.  The T&M continues for about 5 miles further north running parallel with the River Weaver through pleasant countryside to Preston Brook Tunnel. When we emerge from the tunnel we are no longer on the T&M - but now on the Bridgewater canal (also well worth a cruise). The T&M was the first 'route canal' and I think it also has to be my favourite canal.