A Walkers Tale

Today we are heading back to the Midlands to complete the full length of the Coventry Canal  - and with this in mind, we are making our way towards Lichfield Trent Valley train station this morning. The main challenge in organising this walk has been deciding how to get to the meeting with the Trent & Mersey Canal and the  Coventry Canal  (just to the north of Fradley).

At the moment I'm not just focusing on canals, but more specifically canals in the Midlands - as I look to join up some of the walks done in the south of England, with those done in the north. And today we have a canal where we are taking a bit of a risk - as if the urban stretch of this canal is not good, we will have to put up with it for quite some time.

Today is the second of two days spent doing some walking along the Coventry Canal - having spent the previous day walking from Coventry to Nuneaton . The previous night had been spent at Bedworth Nuneaton Travelodge, and from here we face two early challenges - firstly trying to (unsuccessfully) order a bacon roll from the nearby Greggs (where an internet outage meant it was cash only), and then trying to cross the busy duel carriageway that this Travelodge sits alongside.

Today we are out exploring the Coventry Canal - and over two days we will look to complete the stretch of this canal between Coventry and Tamworth. We will then come back at a later date to complete the walk round to the join with the Trent & Mersey Canal near Fradley. We will split this walk up at Nuneaton (here we will stay overnight) - and this means that we will have one fairly urban stretch of canal walking today as we make our way through (and out of) Coventry, before then having a far more rural stretch to enjoy on the following day.

Today we are once again walking in the  North Yorkshire Moors  - and today we are repeating a section of path that we walked when doing the Cleveland Way , but today our focus is on the Coast to Coast  trail (which uses the same path as the  Cleveland Way  through the whole stretch we will walk today). On it's way England, the  Coast to Coast  heads from Richmond across the fields to Ingleby Cross, and then climbs up to meet up with the  Cleveland Way  on the ridge that sits above Mount Grace Priory. And then the two run together, all the way along the northern ridge of the  North Yorkshire Moors  - until the  Cleveland Way  turns north to head up to the sea at Saltburn, whilst the  Coast to Coast  takes a more direct route to the coast (meeting up with the coast just to the north of Robin Hood's Bay).

Today we are back walking another stretch of canal - and these canals will be the main focus between now and April, after which I will head back into the hills for the summer half of the year. The canal of interest today is a new but important one - the Grand Union Canal - which provided a faster route between London and the Midlands (it was the HS2 of it's day).