The day has come, we are
now saying goodbye to Warwickshire and other counties of the Midlands. For the
last 27 months we have continuously cruised the many rivers and canals in the
area whilst Karen took a contract in Warwick.
She left last Thursday and after a weekend of preparing and saying our
goodbyes we are finally off.
It was only a couple of
miles to Braunston, our first stop, so Karen walked on the towpath with Buddy
and I met her at the water point. We
spent a fair bit of the morning there; I did things like washing whilst Karen
sorted out her pots and plants. No one
else came along for water so we were able to get all our chores done.
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When we got rid of our
rubbish we noticed that by the bins were the remains of a garden slide and sections
of a large garden shed; we cannot believe these were left by boaters. It’s this sort of thing that is causing
rubbish points to be closed down by CRT thus making the job of rubbish disposal
even more difficult for boaters. The
public have easy access to the rubbish point here so I wonder how long it will
be kept in operation before it goes the way of the one at the bottom of the
Hatton flight I talked about a few weeks ago.
There was only one boat
moored opposite the water point which was the quietest we have ever seen it in
Braunston. We found out that there had
been a share boat show over the weekend and the towpath spots had all been
reserved for exhibitors who have now all gone.
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The ornate iron towpath
bridges at Braunston junction where the Oxford canal heads left and the Grand
Union continues to the south
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As we were getting ready
to leave the water point I noticed the couple in the boat moored opposite were
having trouble removing their bowline.
They had tied it round the retaining railing rather than put a pin in and
with the passing boats it had wedged firmly against a retaining bolt. They were trying to lever the railing out
with a mooring pin to release the rope but without success. In the end I suggested they use one of my especially
long pins in order to get more leverage. The reason I say “In the end” was because I
was worried they would damage the fixings and that they should really cut their
line and leave it there.
I know heavy metal objects
shouldn’t be thrown, but there was no one around so I tied one end of one of
our spare lines to the long pin and the other end to the boat. I then threw the pin across the cut with
Karen holding on to me to stop me falling in.
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The guy collecting the pin
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They soon had their line
free and we just pulled the rope to get the pin back.
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Passing Richard on his
‘butterfly’ boat on his permanent mooring at Braunston
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We were now on the north
Oxford canal and I was soon reminiscing about our first trip along here five
years ago.
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Leaving Braunston with its
many signs of medieval fields
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A mile or so out of
Braunston we passed yet another new marina.
This one is called Dunchurch Pools and already had dozens of boats
moored in it.
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This will make this very
busy area even busier but at least the new towpath bridge over the entrance is
in keeping with those elsewhere on the canal, many of which are over 230 years
old.
We stopped for lunch at
the top of the Hillmorton flight of locks.
These are the busiest locks in the country and with the new marina are
just about to get even busier. In the
early days, second locks were built in order to speed up the flow of traffic.
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The pair of locks at the
top of the flight
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It was good to be going
through narrow locks again and there were lock keepers at the top and bottom
who were setting the locks.
When we spent a few weeks
in the area at the beginning of Karen’s contract I used to talk about a new
water main that was being installed opposite one of our mooring spots at
Hillmorton. The children often take the
mickey out of me and The Pipe and I was pleased to find that there was still
some of The Pipe left above ground.
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On the approach to Rugby
we passed works on the offside…
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…with traffic control in
place:
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We moored up in Rugby to
pay a visit to the 24hour Tesco. Now we
are without a car we have to plan our supermarket trips around the route we are
taking. The trip up to the Peak District
passes many large supermarkets at places like Atherstone, Rugeley, Stone,
Kidsgrove and Whaley Bridge so there’s no danger of running out of anything.
Just before we set off
again the oil boat came past. Not only
does he sell oil and grease, he takes old oil away (for free). We had a quick chat and I told him that I had
just got rid of 20 litres last week at a council tip after stockpiling it in
the engine bay for months.
After leaving Rugby we approached
Newbold tunnel.
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This tunnel was added 50
years or so after the canal first opened in the 1780s as part of the
straightening work to reduce journey times.
As a later tunnel it was built with towpaths on either side; one of only
a handful of tunnels with twin towpaths in the country.
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The offside towpath is
gated off at each end nowadays
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If you’re wondering what
the inverted wigwam is then it’s the top of the willow twigs I cut for Karen last week that
she made into a sweet pea container in the morning at Braunston. When we’re not cruising it sits on one of the
side seats, otherwise it has to go on the floor to avoid the low bridges.
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Stanking plank store just
outside Newbold tunnel
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Just before we moored for
the day we passed the entrance to Lime Farm.
This is on part of the original canal that was cut off during the
straightening works. It has looked a
miserable place for years but is now being spruced up and I hope the new owners
do well. We had our dinette cushions
covered by Sarah who has a workshop here and we have been really pleased with
them.
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Entrance to the Lime Farm boatyard
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We moored for the night at
Cathiron on a strip of Armco just long enough for one boat, so we knew we
wouldn’t have any neighbours. Mind you,
it was the closest we have ever moored to a railway line 😉
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In all we travelled 12
miles through three locks today – now that’s a lot of miles for us in a day 😊
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