Well its another new year so a few statistics from 2023. We covered just over 1000 miles and did 657 lock, that took us 500 hours over 140 days.
Last night we went to bed to the sound of rain, this morning we woke up to sunshine, the strange thingwas the temperature was still dropping and was actually coldest at 9-30am when it dropped just below 3°C. The last time we moored the boat in this spot over night it was locked in ice for about 4 weeks and friends put it back on its moorings when the ice thawed, we are moored directly opposite our old mooring at Napton.
We had a good run down the locks with a boat having just come up the flight, as we arrived at the top lock a boat arrived at the bottom, I think they thought we turned the lock as Dian drew the top paddles just to top up the leakage so a bit long faced as we passed. We were to meet another 3 boats before reaching the bottom of the flight. Moored below the locks facing uphill was an old riveted hulled boat, he had come all the way down the flight backwards yesterday afternoon to avoid getting stuck in lock 10.
This boat had a small electric outboard motor attached to the rear of the hull, I don’t know if it was the only form of propulsion, it also has a large gas cylinder laid across the back end, another on the deck plus a petrol generator.
Passing Napton Narrowboats we counted 24 hire boats waiting for the hire season to start again.
Just past Napton Narrowboats someone has erected a silhouette of a lone soldier with his football on the meadow on the offside. I must admit I didn’t notice it on our way out. Rather a fitting location I thought, alone out in a field.
The seagulls seem to have taken a liking the signpost outside Wigrams Turn marina
We were now on the Grand union, when we came up there wasn’t hardly a single boat moored between here and Braunston, now its back to normal with some of them on bends or as close to bridges as possible, in fact we have seen more boats on the move today than the past 2 weeks.
The private offside mooring at Lower Shuckburgh under Jackson’s foot bridge have grown longer since we were last in this part of the world, I am sure they only just went under the bridge.One thing I did notice but didn’t get a photo of is what I believe is “The Wolfhampcote Grange. It’s a rather imposing looking building and in my opinion
not really in keeping with the area, it looks to be on the line of the disused railway line and is something to do with Anchor Farming Group.
I looked for it on Google Maps but its just a barren spot
We moored quire close to it for the night so that Diana could go exploring (be noisy)and needless to say since we have been here its started to rain.
Today’s Journey6 miles, 7 locks in 3 hours
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