 |
After mooring for the day I saw this through the side hatch. The colours were really
vibrant but didn’t come out on the camera phone but at least I got
the reflections of a double rainbow
|
I forgot to mention that I
saw a water vole on Tuesday – it ran across the towpath in front of me. It was at Calcutt where the towpath runs
between a ditch and the canal. It’s
normally mink we see so I was quite pleased to see a water vole as they are
attacked by the mink which are an introduced species. It’s funny that water voles are also called
water rats because that makes some people recoil but they don’t really look
like rats other than having a tail and four feet.
On Thursday I took Karen
into work at six o’clock as she was going up to Scotland to see Jo in the
evening. As she was taking the train it
meant I had to keep the car and remember to keep moving it whenever I move the
boat. As I planned to go down the Stockton
flight on Thursday I drove the car there with Buddy as soon as he woke up – 8.30!
As Buddy gets car sick I
took his breakfast with us so he could have it once we parked the car. We always try and avoid driving when he has
just eaten.
 |
Buddy wondering why he was
having breakfast outside rather than on the boat
|
We walked back to the boat
and set off for Stockton. Before we
reached Stockton we passed Nelsons arm which is being restored and is the site
of Willow Wren Training. That and its
history was covered in yesterday’s blog entry.
 |
Looking up the arm – the footbridge
is new and has been laid on the abutments of the old railway bridge.
|
 |
The helmsman training
centre (the wooden hut is the classroom for theory) and their boats moored outside
|
I was interested to see
how I did for time today because I find operating double locks as a
single-hander feels rather slow. When
calculating the length of time a trip may take you add the number of miles to
the number of locks and divide by three giving the total number of hours. This assumes an average speed of 3mph and 20
minutes to operate a lock. I tend to
average less than 3mph but complete locks in fewer than 20 minutes, especially
single width, narrow locks.
 |
Going into the top lock at
Stockton
|
Each lock was set against
me and there were no boats coming up and none to share the work with going
down. This meant the flight would take
the maximum time possible.
 |
The sun came out as we
were in the sixth lock
|
Buddy soon got fed up
walking backwards and forwards between the locks to get them ready and close
them up again afterwards.
 |
He also stopped walking
back to get on the boat as I took it into each lock
|
After eight locks we
stopped for water and had a chat with a guy called Paul who was gathering logs
to put on his boat. There was a pub
opposite the water point and as I had started getting quite hot from the
locking I really fancied going in for a drink but I knew I had more locks to do
so resisted the temptation.
 |
The Blue Lias pub opposite the water
point
|
As we set off again after
taking on water we passed Kayes arm which was the subject of Tuesday’s blog
entry.
 |
The entrance to Kayes arm
|
By the time I was doing the last few locks Buddy just sat at the lockside and watched the whole operation.
 |
Getting lazier at each
lock
|
 |
Mind you, he would peer
over the edge when I was taking the boat out to make sure I was OK or that Iwasn't going to leave him behind
|
After going through the
tenth lock I decided that we would travel another mile and moor at Bascote –
another one of our favourite spots and only nine miles from Karen’s
office. If we carried on further I would
have to go down another four locks and as the skies were darkening, and I had
avoided getting wet all day, I decided to call it a day.
Just after coming out of the tenth lock we passed yet another pub but as I had to go and get the car once we moored I resisted temptation again.
 |
| The Two Boats Inn - last time we went here we arrived in our kayak on Buddy's first trip in it |
 |
Moored up for the rest of the day at
Bascote
|
After mooring up we walked
back to Stockton to get the car and park it further down the canal. It just started raining when we got back but
the sun was still out so I got a brilliant view of the double rainbow at the
top of this entry. I seemed to time
everything right as the rain continued into the evening. We love sitting in the boat when it’s cosy
and warm listening to the rain pattering on the roof.
It took me four hours to
cover three miles and go through ten double locks all set against me so I
reckon the 3mph/3 locks per hour worked pretty well today.
No comments:
Post a Comment