Tuesday - Wedgewood to Milton on the Caldon Canal - 9.5 miles, 9 locks, 1 lift bridge, 5.5 hours

As we left Wedgewood it was a little misty but it promised to be a beautiful day if you believed the forecast.  We knew this was going to be a long day as needed to get through the built up areas of Stoke-on-Trent and take the Caldon Canal to Milton.

As we got underway the first couple of locks were against us, as we headed to the third a guy on a bike who was cycling towards us from the lock suddenly turned round and went back to the lock, to our surprise he was setting the lock so we could sail straight in!

We passed The Brittania Stadium, Stoke will be in the Premiership next season, I have a very bad feeling that Sunderland won't!!

It transpired that it was this guys hobby to cycle up and down this stretch of locks and help people.  I was really grateful as having passed no other boats all of the locks were continuing to be against us.

He cycled off but reappeared again a couple of locks down.  Turned out they call him Rob the lock.

 There are many old buildings on this stretch, from the days when this was an industrial heartland.

A couple of the locks on this  stretch have anti-vandal locks on them, luckily we had purchased the key on the way through Stoke in November, although we had not needed to use it then as the locks had not been on. They are also very deep and full of rubbish, what is it with people have they never heard of litter bins!!!!

We turned the sharp right onto the Caldon Canal, this is a new stretch for us.  We could have easily missed it as the sign was not obvious.

Just after we turned onto the Caldon, we passed a statue of James Brindley who was the engineer for the Trent and Mersey canal.

Rob the lock helped us through the next 3 locks then shot off as he had a boat he was booked to help at 3:00, apparently lots of people ring him up when they are going through this stretch! 

The first couple of miles are a bit strange as you have a mixture of new buildings and old run down industrial units.

We travelled on and passed through Milton stopping just before next lock as the countryside opened up, the rest of the Caldon is supposed to be very rural and picturesque, it is apparently a hidden gem, we will soon find out.

EH 496