There was more heavy rain last night, but it had stopped by this morning -- although the day took a while to make up its mind to be sunny. With another day of few miles to do, we started The washing machine and set off when the wash part of the cycle had finished, at about 9am. The canal towards Braunston is quite slow, because of the number of moored boats. One boater asked if the oil around his boat was on the 'river' further along; it wasn't -- and I wondered if the Jerry can next to his boat had anything to do with it. Eventually we reached Braunston Turn and went right, onto the Grand Union proper.
We stopped at the water point by the Stop House and filled the tank. As we did so, Willow from yesterday came and waited their turn behind us. When we were full we moved alomg and moored outside the marina, and walked up to the shop at the bottom lock -- who didn't have the brass plaques I wanted. As we walked back, Willow was heading for the locks, so we called out to them and said we'd come with them. The bottom lock was prepared by a volunteer lock keeper, and above it Mike from the trip boat in Stoke Bruerne was preparing to take his other boat, Jubilee into the paint dock. The second lock needed turning, but after that each lock had a couple of boats coming down.
Not only were there lots of boats going down the flight, there were another six waiting at the top. We continued through the tunnel, passing two more boats. The passage took 22 minutes.
We had lunch on the move after the tunnel, and considered our mooring options at Norton Junction. We thought about reversing onto the Leicester section if there was a mooring close to the junction, but there wasn't. The cottage overlooking the junction looked particularly nice in the sunshine.
There was plenty of room on the approach to Buckby locks, but we're not particularly keen on those moorings, because of the track alongside. The top lock was full, so we went straight in and went down to the long pound below. There were quite a few boats at the far end near the lock, so we moored up before the bend. A little while later, a couple of boats had gone down the locks, so we moved around the corner to where it's more open, near the little canal shop. We went there for ice creams, and found they had the plaques for the Caldon and the Trent and Mersey to add to the panel in the engine room. The local ducks have been washing themselves quite dramatically.
We've also had a brief post-school visit from Catherine, Grace, Matthew, and Matthew's friend, Daniel.
7 miles, 7 locks. (389 miles, 281 locks)
