We got off to a flyer this morning and were on the move by 8 am. Two hours later we had done 1.5 miles, 2 locks, a water stop and the 8 locks in the Stockton flight. All the locks were set for us except one in the middle of the flight (a bit of an anomaly) making it a doddle. We were going up so I opened the lock and Ken brought the boat in. I took the rope off him and held the boat while he climbed up the ladder, closed the gate and wound the paddle. We only did one side as they are quite a fast fill and it saves a lot of toing and froing. Then when the locks were full Ken opened the gate while I wound the paddle down. He went out and I shut the gate. Brilliant, if only it was always that easy!
As it was only 10 am when we finished the flight we decided not to stop at the top of the locks but to carry on a bit further. So we continued to Braunston, a further 7.5 miles and 3 locks at Calcutt. This took a long time because in addition to the permanent moorings, of which there are several, there were also a lot of boats moored along the way, necessitating us to travel at tick over for most of the trip! We arrived at Braunston several hours later.
There are quite a few routes we could take after this stop. The North Oxford followed by the Coventry. The Grand Union towards London. The Grand Union back towards Leicester. The South Oxford. Or we could go back the way we have just come towards Warwick and the Stratford or Birmingham canals.
As we haven’t decided what we are going to do we wanted to moor as near the Braunston Turn as possible while we make our minds up. Our first 2 attempts at getting in to the 14 day moorings (that’s a laugh) before the turn were thwarted by the stupid sloping bank and the shallowness of the water. We were no where near the bank and although we have moored like this in the past we couldn’t be arsed with it today.
We have come just round the corner and are in a position to reverse back to the turn when we go if we need to. We have to stay here until Friday morning so Midland Swindlers can get us a replacement 12v tv as our new one just doesn’t want to work!
Tomorrow we are going to Rugby on the bus again.
