Starug two

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Peaceful, relaxing and very easy to follow. I started at dawn in Rugeley and made the short way to the canal through town. The section along the Trent and Mersey Canal in Rugeley is popular with anglers and dog walkers and the gardens on the opposite bank tend to be quite ornate. Having crossed by aqueduct over the River Trent I was soon out of the town and into the countryside of the Trent Valley. The canal is well used by boaters and the moments of solitude are interspersed with the occasional "Hello" to joggers, dog walkers and narrowboats. As it heads north, the River follows to your left and you get views across cattle on the flood plain to the wooded hills of Cannock Chase. It's a lovely walk. The villages of Colwich, Little Heywood and Great Heywood are all well maintained picturesque places to walk through by towpath. It was too early for it to be open, but I checked that the pub in Little Heywood is a short walk from the route. At Great Heywood you leave the Trent and Mersey and join the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. As I passed on a Saturday morning there were many new hirers being taken through the basics of their narrowboats by staff. It's a route I've walked quite a few times before but today I found the S&W less interesting than the T&M. On the edge of Stafford, leaving the canal, the footpath was diverted (by only tens of metres) to accommodate a restored canal. The next section follows the Sow and there are a number of more direct options than the official footpath. There's a strange bridge which crosses where the Penk should be which I've left the route crossing. After crossing a bridge and the road which crosses it, the route picks up the River Sow Leisure Route, a really enjoyable paved walk into the town centre. After the temptations of the leisure park I crossed Victoria Park to make my hourly train home with 5 minutes to spare. Uncanny. This route, at 18.3km was the second longest Slow Way I've walked. It's offroad, safe, beautiful and very very easy to follow. But is there a more direct way? I looked at it and couldn't find one without a price. Less offroad if you followed the A513 and more of a climb if you somehow could piece together a series of paths across Cannock Chase. But just because I couldn't find it doesn't mean there isn't a better route.

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