Last night, I had a great evening at a Radio 2 presenters’ event in London, and didn’t get back to the boat until well after midnight. Adrian went out for a meal at an Indian restaurant. Also last night he discovered that the fridge had been off for a while, and things in the freezer had defrosted and needed to be replaced. This morning, after an early trip to the little Tesco just down from the basin, we set off at 8am. Going this way, you get a much better view of the Cash’s Hundreds, the houses which used to have weaving looms on the top floor.
At one blind bridge we came face to face with a hire boat, prompting lots of reverse from both of us. We ended up with something round the prop, which turned out to be the fabric from an umbrella. At Longford, volunteers were out in force litter picking and tidying up, including removing a huge amount of bushes from in front of a wall.
We got to Hawkesbury Junction after a couple of hours and stopped on the water point before the turn. We filled the tank, got rid of rubbish, and started some washing. Numerous boats from the opposite direction arrived and made the turn, making the pool beyond the junction bridge rather busy.
It was soon our turn to go under the bridge, and then through the stop lock onto the North Oxford Canal.
The next section is not that interesting. We managed to get past a couple of slow boats, and just pushed on in the sunshine. When we got to Brinklow Marina, where we used to moor when we first had the boat, we turned in — in order to catch up with Mark who’s now the harbour master there, and Del and Al from Derwent6. We spend a good hour swapping news from the last couple of years, which seem to have been quite eventful. It was really great to see them.
The locks at Hillmorton currently close early, with the last entry at 4.30. We knew we wouldn’t get there in time, so went through Newbold and Rugby and moored at the golf course.
20 miles, 1 lock. (249 miles, 247 locks)
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