Canal walk at Willington

Wednesday 14th January 2009
It was cold, frosty and foggy today so we drove to Willington and did a walk along the canal. We had done this walk a few months ago but not written it up because it had been pouring with rain and an uneventful walk. We had found a few geocaches last time but more had been added along the route since we walked it. We parked near the canal and started off searching for a cache that we couldn't find last time we did this walk. We still couldn't find it so set off over the canal bridge and found the “Topsy and Tim” cache. We hadn't found this one last time either but it was quickly found today, log signed and rehidden. We walked along the road towards Findern, crossed the railway, and walked past the new marina, it was too foggy to admire the view. We found the “Cats eyes” cache that had been missing last time and then walked through Findern and over the canal bridge onto the tow path. Just before the bridge we passed an Indian restaurant with a motorised rickshaw in the garden and a thatch covered outdoor snooker table, I suspect it might have been a bit chilly for a game. It was still very foggy and all the trees and hedges along the towpath were covered in hoar frost. We continued along the canal passing several barges and finding a few more caches along the way.
We walked beside the bridge which had collapsed the day before we walked it last time. A tractor with a trailer of slurry had tried to cross it and collapsed into the canal. The bridge had been partially repaired and was now wrapped in green netting.
We stopped for a nice carvery lunch at the Bubble Inn at Stenson marina. The canal at Stenson was frozen but clear further down the canal. We then walked on and searched for the nano shasbot cache (a very clever container) and the Icebreaker; both were quickly found. We left the canal and walked along the road and round the perimeter of a field to rejoin the canal at Stenson, walking back along the canal again searching for more geocaches. The fog had cleared by now so we had good views of the power station. We found a few more caches, (one named Shadow of Giants Wive's Dresses - a reference to the shape of the power station cooling towers), but some were hidden too well. We arrived back at Willington at about 3.30pm and walked to the church to find the last cache. We had found 8 out of 11 today and walked 12.5 km. There were no photos taken today because of the fog.