A single hander was ahead of us, and waited at the third lock while filling the one below. He had two Jack Russells who knew exactly what was going on and kept a beady eye on everything. After the four locks at Bascote is Splash Bridge; I’d like to know how it got its name.
At Welsh Road Lock the lock cottage had a cool box outside offering eggs at £2 for a half dozen. Not cheap, but we splashed out. Four of the six are blue.
Our single handed lock partner was mooring up below this lock, but we carried on. We passed a boat at the next lock, one of the very few moving boats we’ve seen today. The subsequent locks all needed filling, suggesting they’d only just set off. Radford Bottom Lock brings you down into the sump pound, and we continued through Leamington Spa, where there are lots of new houses being built, and there is some quality graffiti. Or it might be actual art.
We paused opposite the Morrison’s on the edge of Leamington, as Adrian needed to pick up an order from an Amazon locker there. While he was there, he also did a quick shop. We set off again, had lunch on the move, and moved almost seamlessly from Leamington to Warwick. Kate Boat’s was busy with hire boaters loading their boats and being shown what to do. At the Cape Locks, the first uphill ones this side of the valley, the bottom lock was empty and a boat was coming down the top one, so it couldn’t have worked out better. There was loads of space above the locks, so we moored up at about 2pm. Shortly afterwards, the boat behind us moved up a bit to fill in the gap between them and another boat, so we did the same, putting our solar panel into better sunshine. Adrian has been working and I’ve been writing a boat test. In the middle of the afternoon, I took a couple of our plastic festival pint glasses over to the pub for a couple of pints.
9 miles, 12 locks. (65 miles, 51 locks)
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