Last night the traffic noise wasn’t too bad but picked up a bit early this morning. It was ten past ten when we set off this morning on a much cooler day. It wasn’t long before it started a light drizzle and when that stopped it turned cold so a fleece went on at the end of July, then the rain started again so out came the brolly so it rained harder and on went the coat, then it really started to rain so now its brolly and coat. This went on until lunch time when we stopped to it and it stopped raining. The Voles were out in force again swimming across the cut, this one was sitting on a bunch of floating weed but decided to swim off after we had passed.
I spotted yet another Canal Company boundary marker, this one in a field co not nicely painted like the one in the pub garden.
As you can see plenty of room for erosion before it reaches the farmers land, I wonder if he pays rent, I bet it adds up to a fair old area.
About a mile from Marston Junction a large bough has snapped out of this willow tree in the last few days, they don’t call them crack willows for nothing.
Out of Marston junction at twenty past twelve and turned very sharply left towards Coventry back on the Coventry canal, you get an idea how sharp it is from this map from Waterways Routes.
We carried on for about another mile and a half before deciding to stop for lunch and if the weather didn’t improve overnight. There are some new manikins at Charity Dock and some of the boats have been tidied up a bit, all the cruisers in a row, but due to the rain no photograph.
Needless to say as soon as we stopped so did the rain, so after lunch we set off again to Hawkesbury Junction where there is another tight turn , this time 180° under the bridge and back to the stop lock, this has a fall of about 6” 150mm and was to protect the water supply between the Coventry Canal Company and the Oxford canal Company. The lock has a single gate at each end and each one has a strapping post on it. When the working boatmen came into the lock going down they would put a rope round this post so both closing the gate with the momentum of the boat and stopping the boat hitting the bottom gate. I can’t workout why there is a post on the bottom gate as the gate swings into the lock so you cant strap against it or pull the gate shut. I suppose if you were pulling a butty you could close the gate by strapping the motor to a standstill just outside the lock.
A short way along the North Oxford Canal someone is restoring lorries and farm implements, Not a very good photograph but I cant work out what the wagon is in front of the tractor. The tractor has a saw bench fitted and the tipper lorry behind it is one already restored. There is also a restored green lorry to the left of the wagon.
Now we were looking for somewhere to moor, the first spot we saw which is a reasonable distance from the motorway was just passed the Ansty water point, there are actually rings along here but there was too much debris on the bottom to get in close, I dint mind sitting in silt but not on hard lumps banging away so we went a bit further to the long term moorings just through bridge 14. As usual they were all empty and I have not seen them used for about 5 years so at 4pm that was us for the night. We can still hear the motorway but its as good as it gets along here.
Today’s Journey 
11 Miles, 2 Junctions, 3 canals and 1 lock in 4½ hours.
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