Sunday, 15 June 2014

Hawkesbury Junction to Barby - 17.5 miles, 4 locks, 1 swing bridge

Friday night was the boys Curry night.  Having had to watch what I drank last week I offered to drive so Rod wasn't so restricted.  It would be fair to say he took full advantage of this offer, if you want me to dish the dirt I am open to bribery, suffice to say it was quite entertaining and more than a little challenging :-). A big thanks to Dave for getting him back to the house safely. By the time we got back onto the boat it was 1:45 a.m. and thankfully we avoided falling in the canal!!!

As a consequence we were a bit later setting off on Saturday morning, the first job was to tackle Hawkesbury junction and the stop lock.  It was surprisingly busy, but the lock is so shallow it didn't take long for the boats to get through.


As we headed away from the junction there was a horse tethered on the bank, not sure if it was being used for pulling a traditional boat or if some one was just taking advantage of common land.


We were also followed for a distance by a pair of swans and their signets.


Unfortunately the sun seems to have deserted us, that will teach me to make reference to the fantastic weather!!!

We passed under the M6 again, it never seems to have been far away!


We moored at a nice spot that we had stopped at on the way up back in August, we were lucky as we were a bit later we got one of the last spots.

I cycled back for the van as Mr B was still a little worse for wear, bless him :-).

Later that evening Rod got talking to the guy in front, they had been the proud owners of their boat since new - 30 years ago, I wonder if we will ever be able to say that about By The Way.

It was a late night, as we stayed up to watch the England - Italy game, oh well - maybe Thursday will bring us a better result.

Sunday we set off about 8:00, we had no set destination, other than we wanted to get through Rugby and the locks at Hilmorton.  It was a pretty busy morning, there are a number of hire boat companies on this stretch so we encountered more traffic than we have for a number of months.



It was very strange coming through Rugby, this is our home town and was weird seeing places from the canal.


After Rugby come the locks at Hilmorton, these are narrow locks, but they are in pairs. So as we headed into the second lock, we took the right hand lock, there was a boat going in the same direction heading into the left lock. They were really struggling, it was a hire boat and this was clearly their first set of locks, they had no idea, we tried to give them some advise and help them on their way, but I really felt for them.

As we travelled on looking for a good place to stop, we passed a quaint terrace of canal side cottages.


We eventually found a good spot and moored up.  At this point George took the opportunity to deliver his Fathers Day card - it would be fair to say that he was about as enthusiastic as the words on the card!!



I managed another short run, just over 2 miles, pace is really slow, but I must be patient - Rome wasn't built in a day :-) but as my Dad used to say I wasn't foreman on that job!!

Tomorrow we are heading to Napton, so we can revisit one of our favourite pubs from our travels - The Kings Head.  So the next posting will have a few foodie pics I expect.

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there and to our Dads you are always in our hearts, we miss you loads.

(M794, L615, EH676.5)









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