Wednesday 12th June
We were up and about this morning ready for our trip from Braunston to Stockton on the Grand Union Canal. First things first – a trip to the sanitary station. The water point here is very vigorous and I managed to soak the cratch, the steps inside the front doors and my feet and trousers – twice!
How? Well, I had two 5 l containers to fill as well as the tank so I took the hose out of the tank filler to put it in to the first container, bent it to stop the water flow of course, but the water was coming out so hard that when I put the hose in the container the force of the water knocked the container over and the hose flew out soaking everything. And then I did exactly the same thing again with the second one!
The sanitary station joys did not end there because as I went to empty the cassette I noticed the elsan disposal was out of order, great! Not to worry there is another elsan disposal along the canal towards the locks. We weren’t going that way and we weren’t on the right side of the canal to gain access so after we had filled with water we had to moor on the other side of the canal and I set off with the cassette.
Ken asked if I wanted to put the cassette on the trolley but thinking it wasn’t very far to the elsan and as our cassette has it’s own wheels I made a mistake and said no. The tow path was a bit uneven and I was coming down off the bridge when there was a crunching sound and I ground to a halt.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, one of the wheels had come off the cassette! Did I then go back for the trolley? No, I thought it wasn’t very far and carried the cassette the rest of the way. It was further than I thought and very heavy I can tell you!
We eventually set off, travelling 5 miles to Napton Junction where we turned off towards Warwick and after travelling a further 3 miles and the 3 locks at Calcutt arrived at Stockton just before lunch. We are moored just upstream of Birdingbury Wharf Bridge. It is a lovely spot, there are a few other boats here but not many.
After mooring up we went to the pub, or rather we would have gone to the pub if it had not been closed! The Boat looked as though it had seen better days and we couldn’t work out if it was just closed lunchtimes or closed down all together. Indeed the outside seating area resembled a savannah rather than a manicured lawn!
So, how then did we satisfy our alcoholic tendencies? We walked about a mile down the locks to Bridge 23 where we found The Blue Lias, a really lovely pub with extensive gardens, a caravan site, fishing lake and 4 of our favourite beers including Adnam’s Broadside, hurrah! Job done.
There was excitement at the pub as a hire boat, which had three quarters made it through the bridge hole, suddenly reversed back through it like a demon and stopped on the pub moorings. The cause of this reversal was two boats tied together coming towards them and as there were boats moored near the bridge they couldn’t get past. Unfortunately the two boats couldn’t get through the bridge while they were still tied together so the man off the unoccupied boat, who was doing the lock work, had to walk back, untie the boats and steer his through the bridge separately. By this time the crew off the hire boat had moored up properly and got the beers in!
This afternoon it was showery and this evening it has just rained non stop, ever since Ken went out to do some fishing actually! Tomorrow it is supposed to be wet and windy so it remains to be seen if we move on or not. Probably not.
