Welcome to Maverick's Big Adventure

Come with me and be inspired as I travel the globe
experiencing this awesome world.
Enjoy my travel blog.

Hi, my name is Jack although my friends tend to call me Maverick, probably because I don't live by the same rules they do. I refuse to grow up and settle down. I read somewhere that if you haven't grown up by the time you are 40 you don't need to. Well at 60 something I guess I qualify. Thank goodness for that.

I have spent most of my life just bumming around, country hopping, taking photos and having an absolutely incredible time. So I put up this blog to share some of my pictures, and some of my awesome experiences, with you.


You don't need to buy anything but if you chose to, thank you. Its how I finance my travels and it enables me to share more of my experiences with you.


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Penkridge, a lovely market town in Staffordshire

Well, here I am in the village of Penkridge. It's the halfway point, more or less, of the noisy section that runs close to the M6 motorway.

Penkridge is a place of relative peace, a haven of calm, the canal being separated from the motorway by several rows of houses. You can still hear it when the wind is in the wrong direction, but it's not too bad.


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Radford Meadows Nature Reserve

this ancient flood meadow sits alongside the Staffs & Worcs Canal in England

Radford Meadows Nature Reserve, on the southern outskirts of Stafford in the English Midlands, is managed by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust.


What better way could there be to view the reserve than to take a leisurely stroll along the towpath of the Staffs & Worcs Canal in July. At this time of year the banks are rich with meadowsweet and there are several good viewpoints from which to appreciate the reserve without disturbing the wildlife.


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Making Hay While The Sun Shines

Haymaking in Staffordshire, England

Haymaking isn't just about feeding farm animals through the winter, it's also about nature conservation. Hay meadows can either be managed for wildflowers or ground nesting birds. It all depends when you mow the grass.


It's been a lovely few days here in Walton-on-the-Hill, on the outskirts of Stafford, watching the haymaking.


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Tixall Wide and Tixall Gatehouse
on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

Well I tossed my coin and it came up tails so I am now on the Staffs & Worcs, moored up at Tixall Wide (52.802°N 2.025°W).

Tixall Wide is a lake on the canal, also known as Tixall Broad or The Broad Water.


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Great Haywood
the meeting of the ways

The famous engineer James Brindley (1716 - 1772) was the great brain behind the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Great Haywood in Staffordshire, where the rivers Sow and Trent join beneath Essex Bridge, to flow as one towards the sea, was an obvious choice for one on the most important canal junctions in the country.


Here, thanks to Brindley, the Trent & Mersey Canal joins the Staffordshire and Worcester canal, enabling onward travel to any of the four great English estuaries, the Humber. the Thames, the severn, and the Mersey.


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Shugborough Hall
an exquisite National Trust stately home
in Staffordshire, England

The Shugborough estate was the official residence of the Bishops of Lichfield until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. There's money in organised religion.

The estate then had a succession of owners until 1624 when it was purchased by William Anson, a lawyer, of Dunston, Staffordshire. Apparently he paid just for £1,000. That's the power of inflation I suppose.


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All the photographs on this page are copyright Jack Cox, all rights reserved,
however you are very welcome to use them on your own website,
free of charge, in exchange for a backlink. Other rights also available Click here for details.

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