Newbold Friday 21 February 2014

We we did take the car back to the moorings and walked back down the flight last night, it was a gorgeous evening, clear, starlight with no wind and not too cold.

After abusing the batteries like that the voltage was a bit low this morning but hopefully with some good runs it will improve as the week goes on, if not we can live with them in this state until the summer. Then I will check the water when I do an oil and filter change.

We set off at 10am to a bright, sunny, wind free day, but by 11am a cold breeze had picked up making it a lot less pleasant.

There was only one boat moored by The Bridge Inn but most of the 14 days at the Folly were taken. Surprising as these are such good moorings with a handy road nearby.

Napton Narrowboats had 22 of there boats moored up but there looked to be several vacancies in the marina. We met quite a few boats between here and Braunston where we turned left onto the North Oxford. It was along this stretch that we saw our first lambs of the season.

The strange boat that was on the long term moorings at Hillmorton last time we came this way is now moored at Willoughby. It is further from the bridge than it looks in this photo.

The black rabbit was still about on the towing path opposite the winding hole at tarry’s Bridge. I shot this just before he slipped down his burrow. As we approached Hillmorton locks the fields had quite a bit of water in them as well as some higher ground, but the water didn’t seem to bother this sheep who was happily paddling around nibbling the grass.

The next port of call was Hillmorton locks, These are twin locks as the single lock slowed the heavy traffic down to much. At one time it was possible to save water by emptying one lock into the other, This would half empty the first and half fill the second, of course this was only practical if one was already empty, the other full and two boats waiting to use the locks, I do wonder how much it was actually used. There is still the remains of the paddle gear between the locks. We decided against stopping for water but did have a quick chat with a friend who was moored there, about a mile further on the bank has slipped with all the rain we have had recently. I wonder what it will be like passed All Oaks tomorrow? Diana gave me the news that Great Britain had picked up a silver medal in the men’s curling by quite a margin and we continued on to the visitor moorings at Newbold where we tied up at 1615hrs for the night, about half an hour later the forecast rain arrived so that wasn’t to bad.