Well it happened again, 10 o’clock, putting the tiller on a a boat chugs up behind and had a row of locks in their favour. Thankfully bot sets of Hillmorton locks are now open, last time we were this way the near side were all chained.The water level in the North Oxford is now on weir both above and below the locks. This is the weir above the locks.
As we went through the offside top lock I notices some animal droppings on the top of the mooring bollard, I tried for a photo as they were not dog droppings but was unsuccessful. We met a boat in the middle lock so at least the bottom lock was with us and the boat we were following opened the gate ready for us. At the bottom lock I took another photo of the horse looking out of the door.
It looks as if CRT have put these yellow stickers on all their sign board now , large of small.
Although we met several boat it was surprising how few were moored in the normally busy places. There were only 2 above Hillmorton and 2 cruisers on the long winter moorings below the locks with a few beyond the winter mooring near Kent Road Bridge, hardly anything in Rugby and only a couple on the visitor moorings at Newbold, even so a couple have managed to moor on the water points. What I have not seen before is the number of boats moored to the towpath just before the railway bridge to the north of Falls Bridge boat yard.
The ex working boat that is permanently moored by Hungerfield Bridge is nicely decorated for Christmas and the hedge behind the towpath has been nicely layered.
There are several boats moored at All Oaks wood but they are well spaced out, luckily there was a spot at the end of the piling we could drop onto.
Once moored up I paid a visit to the weed hatch, things didn’t feel quite right, a found a short length of blue rope and some beads wrapped loosely around the shaft in front of the prop, I had to cut it to get it off.
Today’s Journey
8 miles with 3 locks in 3 hours
No comments:
Post a Comment