Marsworth (what is society coming to?)

Thursday was a wipe out as far as continuing our journey was concerned. We awoke to strong winds which then steadily increased during the morning. We resigned ourselves to staying put and losing a day out of our schedule which meant we would now arrive in Aylesbury on Sunday.

We now have no more contingency as, if we don’t make it by Sunday evening, we won’t be able to get to the basin as the final lock on the arm closes on Monday morning for some maintenance works.  If we end up missing the deadline then we’ll hang around the Marsworth area until after Christmas and then come down to Aylesbury.

I have to admit that I was quite glad we didn’t move as I have had a niggling earache and sore throat for a few days and they were worse on Thursday.  A day’s rest was probably a blessing in disguise.

Apart from taking Buddy out first thing, I stayed indoors all day and Karen gave Buddy his walks in the morning and afternoon.  At least we got a lot of admin and other jobs done during the day including transferring most of the funds, we need for cruising in France next year, into Euros. We cannot see the exchange rate improving before we go to France and, if anything, it will probably get worse.

We left just before 7.30 on Friday morning, hoping to make up some of our lost time.  The winds had abated and it promised to be a sunny day as there were few clouds in the sky.  As we left early, Karen took Buddy for his pre-breakfast walk whilst I set off.

Catching the sunrise for a change

As with a lot of the canal around Milton Keynes there are decent cycle paths running parallel with the towpath.  This means the towpath is generally a lot quieter than normal commuter routes as cyclists, runners and dog walkers tend to use the cycle path instead of the towpath which is often muddy.  When we cast off, Karen sorted out the front lines as usual whilst I looked after the rear.  I saw a commuter cyclist in high-viz lycra heading towards us on the towpath and not the cycle path.  Unbelievably he wasn’t slowing down and rang his bell once as he approached. 

Karen was bending over taking the mooring chain out of the piling so hadn’t heard his ding on the bell.  I shouted a warning to her and she moved out of the way as he came haring past.  He shouted. ”For fuck’s sake” and as he came past me I shouted that he should be on the cycle path and he just stuck his fingers up and carried on.  That’s the sort of behaviour that makes us wonder just what is society coming to nowadays?

Not a nice way to start a day’s cruising ☹

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Water Eaton is the last part of Milton Keynes that the canal passes through, and once we were past all the moored boats, we were out in open country.  The canal is quite wide and deep most of the way to Leighton Buzzard, so we were able to get a move on.

Leaving Water Eaton early on Friday

It was still well before 8 when we were approaching Stoke Hammond lock and to our surprise a boat was coming out.  We (nor they) had expected to see another boat so early on a winter’s morning so it was nice to be able to drive straight into a set lock (and nice for them not to have to close it up).

Waiting for a boat to come out of Stoke Hammond lock

After five locks we were going through Leighton Buzzard.  The canal runs through the town and has handy moorings alongside a large Tesco superstore where we have stopped off on our way through before but not this time as we will do our weekly food shop when we get to Aylesbury.

We noticed how many more boats were moored in the area than when we last came through four years ago.  We had heard the London ‘effect’ has reached Hemel Hempstead with seemingly miles of moored boats. Trains into Euston from Leighton take just over 30 minutes so it’s an easy commute, so maybe it’s reaching further north now?

A few more locks brought us to Slapton which is about ½ mile from the where the Great Train robbery occurred. A boat was in the lock at Slapton and he waited for us to catch up, so we could go up together.  In the end we went up half a dozen locks with Ian and had a good old natter all the way.  He has lived on his boat for 12 years and with a handicapped wife is a single-hander unless he has visitors; probably a contributory factor to his constant talking to us even when walking away to open a lock or get on the boat 😉

As we wanted to get as far as possible during the day, we had lunch on the move – a delicious leek, onion and potato soup that Karen had made when we were wind-locked on Thursday.

Lovely view of the Chilterns meant we were nearly at our destination

We left Ian at Ivinghoe and continued on our own up the Seabrook flight.

Waiting at the Seabrook bottom lock with the sun still out

We had a pit stop at Pitstone to get a pump out and then decided to go up the first two locks on the Marsworth flight.  These were the last two broad locks of the trip from Yorkshire, so we had an added incentive to complete them today.

At the final lock of the day

Lovely remote cottage at the last lock  made more attractive with no vehicular access

The remaining 16 locks of the current mission are all narrow locks on the Aylesbury arm and we both heaved a big sigh of relief when we moored up after the lock of the day 😊

Moored at Marsworth for Friday night (with a solar light on already)

As soon as we came indoors, the skies opened, and it started raining – we couldn’t have timed it better 😊 We cruised continuously for nine hours (apart from the 15-minute pit stop) during the day and covered 13 miles up 16 broad locks.  We were shattered so we had dinner somewhat earlier than usual.

We should easily get down to Aylesbury on Saturday now as we only have 6 miles and 16 narrow locks to go through.