Last night's weather forecast wasn't too clever, so we decided to wait and see before committing to the off.
It rained a fair bit during the night, but by this morning, while it was overcast, at least it wasn't raining.
The decision to move was taken, and Cath hefted her windlass handle and strode off to prepare the first lock. There's two here, Hunton Bridge Locks, 11ft. 2 in. in total. Next is Lady Capel's Lock and then we passed under a pretty snake bridge.
This type of bridge is one of the elegant solutions to allow horse drawn boats to continue where the towpath changes sides, without unhitching the horse.
Just after this there is The Grove Mill, it looks as if this old mill has been converted into flats.
Just after this there was a short sharp shower, I cowered under a brolly for a few minutes, but it really came to nothing. Once again the weatherman could have done better.
At Cassiobury Park Locks we came across a few C&RT people working hard trying to clear a weir. One of them very kindly warned us that the next pound was a bit low, helped us with the lock and ran some water down to raise the level.
At Cassio Bridge Lock we met a couple of boats coming up, one of them asked us to hold the lock as he was just going up to the winding hole and would be returning. He was having some sort of mechanical problem and there was a boatyard below the lock that he wanted to call at. Brave fellow, he was effectively single handing because his wife was busy inside with their two very young children. One young 'un is a handful on a boat, two must be a nightmare.
There have been several brave herons on this bit of canal, standing watching us instead of flying away. This whole bit of the canal today has been quite pretty, with leafy corridors, and some fine bridges.
We've tied up for the night just above Lot Mead Lock, and will run down to the services at the next lock tomorrow morning.
Here's the map:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Sorry, but due to spam I've had to enable verification to prove you're not a machine.
Bob