We visit Queens Head.

These beautiful mornings are getting boring now. We slept like logs and before setting off we pushed over to top up with water while dropping the rubbish off.

The first lock of the day is just round the corner from the Westen Branch Junction and is more like a stop lock with a fall of only a foot or two. It is named after Graham Palmer the founder of the organisation that did much of the work to reinstate the canal for us. The Waterway Recovery Group was set up by him in 1970 following groups doing work for the previous 8 years. He started up the Navvies Notebook that listed where restoration work was taking place as well as in his home area. He was secretary of the London and Home Counties IWA

Can you tell Helen was posing for the photo?

There are a few straights and plenty of trees. The shade and lack of wind meant that we had a high old time with the horse flies and various flying creatures. Fortunately were weren't bitten badly.

There are occasional breaks in the trees and you get good views of distant hills and rolling fields of pasture for cattle or with a good crop of fodder hay or sillage drying or being baled.

The canal is not that deep but we only met one boat coming the other way. There will need to be a bit of chopping back over the winter me thinks though.

After three miles there is another bend where the the Shrewsbury to Chester railway crosses the canal. Rednal Basin was built as a transhipment basin and there were siding from the main line to facilitate this. It didn't last that long but the basin was taken over by a bone works that was in business until the 1920's.

A little further down the canal at Heath Houses is this lovely little warehouse with the remains of the swinging crane arm. The lower floor worked with the canal boats and the upper floor with the road.

Rednal Station was built in 1848 and is very close to the canal. For a short time a packet boat from Newtown ran to this wharf to transfer passengers to the train. The journey took 5 hours 15 mins to cover the 30 miles. It ended when the railway arrived in the Severn Valley.

We were heading about a mile further on to a village called Queen's Head, after the pub there of that name. Our plan was to catch the bus for the 20 minute trip into Oswestry as neither of us had been there before.