STAFFORDSHIRE

Travelling along the Trent&Mersey we will be passing through Stoke on Trent on upto Preston Brook along the Bridgewater Canal skirting Manchester through Wigan, Blackburn and Burnley.
The final destination will be York but our first aim is to get to Skipton for the boat festival over the May bank holiday 3/5th.
You may have noticed the Neocounter at the top right of the page, i installed it on the 5th April and the totals are now 776 visitors from 22 countries and this got me thinking how many countries do i need to be worldwide and it appears that there are 195 countries in the world
so i need a few more yet then the web being addictive as it is i went on to find which of these countries are the largest and the top 3 are Russia,Canada&USA but the population of the world came up with China as most populated followed by India&USA.
Anyway if you go abroad can you only go to a country not on my list and whilst there log into the blog so i can achieve worlwide coverage.
In the pic below can be seen Armitage tunnel, well use your imagination as the roof was taken off
this 130yd tunnel around the early 1970`s due to subsidence, suppose boaters couldn`t duck down anymore.

Speed cameras on the cut? well the sign gives that impression but no sign of a camera but it did what i think its intention was and made me aware that just ahead men were working on a floating platform under a new railway bridge that carries the East coast main line. A lot of work is taking place to install extra tracks to take more lines along this stretch


Cruising in to Rugely long before you arrive the power station can be seen on the skyline. It generates 1,000 Megawatts of electricity enough to supply 1/2 million homes and each of those towers could house the dome of St. Pauls Cathedral.
Having a couple of days rest waiting for some post to arrive via the Royal Mail Poste Restante service at the local post office. Taken the time waiting to touch up some of the paintwork and change the fuel filters.