Wednesday 24^th October 2018

I was awake very early and took Harvey out in the dark and posted some postcards. With almost 12 lock-free miles ahead of us, I left Brenda in bed and set off at 7:15 as soon as there was enough light.

Retracing our steps back towards Braunston, passed Gayton Junction and all the moored boats, we made reasonable time. Brenda brought out bacon grill sandwiches just before Bugbrooke and we stopped at Stowehill for water.

We passed through Weedon and again, came upon the massive, new bridge being constructed. Apparently, it is a by-pass for the A45 around the two small villages of Weedon and Flores which were suffering traffic congestion. Northamptonshire County Council were £3 million short of the project but went ahead anyway. And then went bust!

We had the railway running close beside us for a number of miles but, at Brockhall, the M1 motorway comes alongside the canal opposite the railway. It’s surreal having two very fast modes of transport so close to our hidden world, they probably don’t even know it is there. At one point we had the canal, a plane passing overhead, the motorway, the railway, a guy on a pushbike and two walkers. All that was missing was a horse and we would have covered all modes of transport.

We hadn’t planned on doing any locks, but we came to the bottom of the Buckby Flight and it was only 10:30, so we decided to carry on.

We were very unfortunate. As we were approaching the locks, two boats entered travelling in our direction, so we were left to do the locks solo. A shame, the work is halved when accompanied with another boat. There are seven locks in the Buckby Flight, spread over a mile, we were going up-hill. The locks are wide-beam, allowing two narrowboats in the lock at a time, with two gates at the top and two at the bottom. The gates are very heavy to close, and yet the top gates are notorious for opening themselves once a boat has left the lock and the gates closed behind it. It is infuriating, leaving the lock, only to see the gates swing open behind you. Etiquette dictates they are left shut.

Entering the second lock, we had an altercation with a pair of volunteer lock-keepers. While most volunteers perform a good service with cheer, occasionally you come across some that offer no help whatsoever, are given a badge of authority, and act like little Hitler’s. These two were such a pair. They told us we should wait for another boat and share the lock to conserve water. We are well aware of this and normally would wait if another boat was approaching. After all, this makes for shared work. Brenda pointed out that we had been travelling for over 3 hours that day and had seen just four boats, all travelling in the opposite direction, so how long were we supposed to wait. Brenda had already emptied the lock in preparation for us entering. They told us we couldn’t enter as there was a wide-beam boat working down the locks towards us. Brenda pointed out that the lock was already empty so it would have to be filled for the wide-beam so therefore, to conserve water, it would be best if we locked up and so left the lock full. At this point the lock-keepers left us, not even offering any assistance. Leaving the lock, we were perplexed to see a narrowboat leaving the next lock above. It transpired the wide-beam was travelling in the same direction as us. We would have been waiting a long time.

Working up the locks we noticed and old, cast iron pipe running up the lock flight. This was the old system for pumping water back up the flight as at Stoke Bruene. There was a series of newly built shelters that held the new pumping system, using electric pumps. Sure enough, when we reached the top lock, there was the outflow.

   

At the top lock the two volunteers turned up again. We had only seen the one boat on the whole flight, travelling in the opposite direction, with nothing coming our way. We wanted to point this out to them, and also that the pointy end is the front of a boat and normally the direction it travels in, with regards to the wide-beam. But we held our tongues.

Harvey likes to be on the back when we are moving. He is tied on a length of rope long enough so he can see the world, but not so long that he can fall off.

He looks so funny, when we are working locks, peering around the back end at us.

We moored just beyond Norton Junction at 2:45.

Weather: a cold, dull, blustery start to the day. Although the sun appeared later, it remained quite cold. 

Day Total: 7 locks; 13 miles; 1 Tunnel; 0 Swing Bridge; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 7.4

Overall Total: 300 locks; 502 miles; 22 tunnels; 2 Swing Bridge; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 308.7