Lyra's Travels

\Monday 4th June 2012
Much better today. We awoke to sunshine and the sound of lots of boats on the move.
Expecting long queues at the locks we cast off at about 8.30. Cath decided to have a go at lock wheeling so I got a chance to relax and watch. At the first lock there was no one waiting, but one had just gone up so Cath emptied the lock and in I went.
Now we had caught up with someone, but with traffic going both ways at least there were plenty of people to do the work. After 4 locks we had about a mile of level cruising before the next one. No point in hurrying with lots of boats around so we just plodded on slowly. At the next we waited for the one ahead of us to clear and there was no one waiting to come down so it was straight in after emptying it. Another mile and we were in a queue again for the last 3 locks we were going to do today, but, there was once again plenty of help.
We reached Wheelock at about 1.00 pm where we used the facilities  before moving on to the mooring area. While waiting for the water tank to fill we were joined by an unusual sight, a steam driven narrow boat. It was the brainchild of a retired electrical engineer, who had built the engine from scratch as a retirement project.