What I wasn’t expecting last night was the 50% government discount on our meals, so a bill that started off at £58 45 ended up at £25.12 after all the discounts were taken off. The moorings however were very noisy with traffic all night, I don’t expect tonight to be much better moored right by a bridge.
We made our normal 10am start and only saw 2 boats all day so most so lots of the lock were against us. After Minworth locks there are loads of blackberries on the offside.
At Salford Junction we carried straight on up the Thame Valley, just beyond the junction there is the remains of a toll island which is well overgrown. 
This part of the canal is under Spaghetti Junction so
you are often under concrete and concrete needs maintaining, hence all the scaffolding and men working above. 
Although the canal along here is crystal clear and you can see the fish it also its a sad place as a police officer lost his life trying to arrest a man armed with a knife, the man with mental health issues should never have been at large let alone with a knife.
The first and only real problem was being unable to close the bottom gates of lock 13, the cause was was a car tyre on the cill, thankfully I was able to 
remove it with the shaft but I could only just reach it. On the top gate Diana couldn’t operate the antivandal lock, it turned out to be a piece of rust stopping the key fitting. We needed somewhere to stop for lunch and I found this handy post to just 
attach the centre rope to while we stopped for lunch. There was a bit of weed in some of the pounds but nothing to stop us, we met a boat 
coming down between locks 6 and 7 with tales of how bad it was above the flight, we will find out for ourselves tomorrow. We continued on to the top of the flight and the visitor moorings, we were told these are quiet mooring but our bow is almost under the A34.
Looking back from our mooring is a building just below the top lock on the other side of the canal. I wont say what it is but leave it for you to read the name above the door.
Today’s Journey 10 miles, 16 locks in 6 hours.
Map courtesy of Waterway Routes https://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/
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