Saturday dawned bright and
mild and there was no ice on the water which was a first for a week or so. We had arranged to meet Mike and Lesley about
ten; they were parking at the top of the 21 lock Hatton flight then walking
down to meet us on our way up. As it was
we were running late and they were bang on time so we had only just set off
when we saw them walking along the towpath.
It’s so much easier when
locking up a flight when there are four people and we soon got into a good rhythm. We weren’t in a rush so often I would be
chatting away with Mike at the lockside and we hadn’t noticed the lock was
ready for us to leave.
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Lesley explaining to Mike
how to operate the paddles…
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…and Mike taking no notice
and treating it all as a joke
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Lesley must be telling
Karen something naughty as Karen is covering up Buddy’s ears
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The weather was so good
that we were able to have our jackets off for most of the ascent. Like, all the other locks on the northern
Grand Union between Braunston and Knowle these were installed in the 1930s to
replace the original single locks that caused bottlenecks for the freight traffic. Typical of 1930s style are the concrete
footbridges that must have been installed at the same time.
Mike explained that one of
the bridges is called Ugly bridge and we were surprised that we have never
noticed that considering the number of times we must have looked at the map of
this section of canal.
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An ugly bridge called Ugly
bridge
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Just after half way the
locks are a lot closer together and make for a good view.
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Locks 37-42
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We reached the top in
something over 2 ½ hours which wasn’t bad as most locks were set against us and
we spent a lot of time chatting. We didn’t
meet a single boat which would never happen in the season – one reason why we
like cruising at this time of year.
There were plenty of gongoozlers taking pictures and locals walking their
dogs though. Mike and Lesley say they
always feel a bit bereft when doing this flight as they do not have a dog but
there are so many dog walkers about.
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Moored at the top of the flight in a
dingy cutting at Hatton
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Karen had made a splendid
curried parsnip soup so we had some of that with some bread and then retired to
the pub. Unfortunately Mike was driving
otherwise we may have spent quite a while there as they had more than a few
real ales on offer. We had a good catch
up with their news including the latest plans for the build of their new boat. Selfishly, for us, it won’t be ready until
late summer/autumn so it means we can cruise down to Cropredy after visiting
Stratford and take advantage of their mooring in the middle of the
village. At the moment we hope to be
able to use it during the festival.
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Looking down at part of
the flight from the pub – Warwick church tower can be seen in the distance
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After Mike and Lesley left
we walked back down to Cape locks to pick up the car. Rain hadn’t been forecast so we weren’t
prepared for the hailstorm that started half way down but at least Karen got a
picture of a double rainbow.
We drove back to the top
of Hatton and stayed in for the rest of the day. My middle daughter, Lauren, had sent Karen a
new slow cooker spicy beef recipe so Karen had prepared that in the morning –
it’s always good to have a meal in the slow cooker as it means all the
preparation is out of the way by the time you come to eat it and we can just
relax.
It was a great day to
spend with our friends and here are a few more pictures:
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Mike putting his back into
it
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Lesley telling me a story
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Not sure why Lesley was
saluting me – maybe the sun was in her eyes
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Cloud reflection leaving
one of the lower locks
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