We’ve been so busy travelling and having visitors, I’ve lost track of what we did when!!
I just love seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and we’ve been through a few these last few weeks.
The tunnels on the Grand Union Canal are big enough for narrow boats to pass each other. On one of our trips, a boat was going too fast & hit us almost head on!!
As I was steering the boat down Stoke Bruerne locks the gear selector cable broke, which meant I ended up going full speed backwards out of the lock I was just entering. You need to pop the boat into reverse to slow down. So I just switched off the engine to slow down. A hire boat crew helped us moor. The breakdown people came and the young lass fixed the problem & we were on our way within a couple of hours.
We spent a few days in Apsley and our niece Alice & her fella Sam came and worked from the boat.
Our friend Yvonne came to stay for a week. Her friend dropped her at Apsley and picked her up a Leighton Buzzard. Her friend had a short ride with us too.
Yvonne experienced a bit of a hold up as a pound between locks near Berkhamsted was empty.
We decided to have lunch at the end of the Wendover Arm.
Yvonne brought me some lovely fibre to spin.
We visited ‘River Knits’ who used to run their wool dyeing business from their narrowboat, they now have a unit at Weedon Bec in the old ordnance depot. A canal arm & military depot were built during Napoleonic times of unrest. The junction with the main canal is now in-filled & a housing estate built, but the portcullis where the boats used to enter the depot is still there and the channel still has a little water in it.
I brought some yarn from them and it just so happened to be their knit and natter that evening, so we went back to joined them.
Don’t go into locks with swans or ducks is the general rule of thumb, and some locks have notices on them stating that. There are always ones that want to break the rules…….a whole family just sitting waiting for the gates to open!! So, we had to entice them away from the lock with cornflakes, then we had to get the boat in & gates shut before they’d finished their meal.
Winkwell electric swing bridge was having some work done to it. The workforce had to wind the barrier manually & pull the bridge for us.
John lassoed this huge log in Boxmore Lock & we managed to lift it out of the water.
For the last few days we’ve been in Rugby. We met up with a friend of John’s who owns The Merchant’s Inn, in the town. It was wonderful to see the pub so busy mid-week and we were locked in until 02.00!!! (The photo is from mid afternoon.)
In a previous blog I spoke about how twisty the Oxford Canal is as it followed the 300 feet contour. A lot of the twists were straightened out on the North Oxford section. We have explored on foot one of these disused bit of canal, the Brownsover Arm. This arm is still in water as it is a feeder from the River Swift.
The Cosford Aqueduct was built in the mid 1700s and was only used for a few years until the main line was straightened.
