This morning both crews headed off to investigate more of the park starting with the Chasewater Railway which we should have visited yesterday when it was open. Hey ho that’s life! The railway is an old colliery line servicing collieries in the Cannock Chase area. These days it’s a visitor attraction within the park and travels over 4 miles of track which extends half way around the reservoir. It must be one of the earliest preservation railway groups in the country starting in 1959 and they have done a fantastic job with the new station building and heritage centre.
In the Chasewater Innovation Centre we inspected an art exhibition where a young sculptor was exhibiting some of his work. The sculptor only found his hidden talent for art after suffering a major stroke whilst being treated for blood poisoning at the age of 19. Unable to speak and only having the use of one hand he has fought his way back to become a first class artist.
After this Derek and Carrie returned to their boat but we carried on to the other end of the dam to see what was happening in that area. Large area’s had been cleared of all tree’s and had been marked out with survey pegs. A mobile drilling unit was in use at the base of the dam and from what we saw he was drilling down through very wet soft clay. He told us he had another 3 holes to drill but we didn’t ascertain if they were just for geological survey reasons or repair work. We were no sooner back aboard Gypsy Rover when the forecasted rain arrived, great timing.
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