We woke to bright sunshine, but there had been heavy rain earlier, a boat just mooring behind us said it was pouring when he set off at 6-30am, I don’t do 6-30am unless I have to. Not so bright when we left around 10 o’clock. We went the hundred or so yards down the Grand Union and then back to the Stratford canal through the link and then sharp left to go down the South Stratford. I can’t say I have ever noticed the Toll House here before, it looks the same design as the one at Kings Norton.A chap off the boat coming up the top lock walked up to meet us and introduced himself, it was John and he had been updating me on the river conditions on the Canal Forum over the past few days.
We had quite good luck with the locks meeting lots of boat, we even met four boats each about 30 foot long who were locking through in pairs, but our luck ran out around lock 28 after that we were turning them.
I posted the other day about someone painting under a motorway bridge, today we passed under the M40 and someone has kindly put Eyebolts in the concrete on the off side to moor to.
It should also be noted that when the canal was built the engineers obviously thought a lot of horses and put bridges over the spill weirs, on most canals you walk across the bed of the weir and if its spilling you get wet feet and the horses wet fetlocks.
Our original plan for today went out of the window two days ago when we carried on down the first 4 locks of the Lapworth flight putting us too far forward.so we will need to gain or lose a day on the Avon as Gloucester Lock is closed on a Tuesday. We finally stopped for the day just below lock 32, the trees are a bit drippy but we did manage to tie up just before the rains came.
Our latest plan is at https://canalplan.uk/journey/19607_cp
Today’s Journey
2¾miles, 11 locks in 3 hours
1 comment:
I think you’re having trouble with your left and right again!
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