Tuesday Sept 4 2012 GU Gayton

Last night the sun set right over the weir, unfortunately my level of skill photographing such events is not very high. 
This morning we said goodbye to our friends on K2 at  twenty to ten and made our way upstream for a pump out, I winded just before the river narrowed and reversed to the service point so that the connections were on the bank side. One of the first jobs at the services was to clean the pontoon down, it looked as if someone had used it as a toilet.
We pumped our tank and filled with water before continuing on  backwards winding again before the the town lock. There was a boat on the lock moorings so we enquired if they were going up only to be told there was a trip boat, actually it was the St John boat taking a party of disabled coming down. So I asked if they were going up after it was down.Yes, but not for a bit as we are about to have breakfast she said, so we went without them.
We stopped in the town to go to Morrison’s for some shopping and also had lunch before setting off again.
We reached the bottom of the Northampton Arm at 1300 hrs. and I picked up a blade full of brightly coloured polly entering the lock, a good start, luckily a good bang of reverse followed by full ahead sent it shooting out the back. The EA have a nice sign by the lock giving information on strong river flows.
The first few of miles of the Northampton Arm are a disgrace, The reed growth is such that the channel is only 7 ft. wide and that is absolutely weed bound and because of the thick reeds the water flow around the boat is held back pulling the weed up. I would not think that this canal has seen a weed cutting boat in 10 years and thinking about it I have never seen a British Waterways weed cutter. By bridge 9 there are actually mooring bollards on the bank, but you can’t get in due to the weeds. A bit further on a length of towing path is closed for 6 months for Health and Safety reasons until it can be repaired, there is no alternative route but when you consider it about 14 wide its hard to imagine what the problem can be. Once past lock 15 things get much easier and the locks are nicely spaced for working ahead. Part way up a gent asked if I would like him to close the gate for me which was good, he then said he enjoyed my blog. Thank you Simon, it was very nice meeting you.
We came out of the top lock at 1720 hrs., so it had taken us just under four and half hours with the locks against us which wasn’t to bad considering it took 2 hours to do the first 3 miles with only 2 locks.
Once back on the Main Line of the Grand Union Canal we turned right and after about a mile pulled over to moor for the night at almost spot on 6 pm.