There was chaos at Bridge 90, with a boat moored off the end of the moorings, rather too close to the bridge, and boats in both directions. Then there were two boats on the water points before the junction making it very narrow. But once past the junction there was plenty of mooring space, had we needed it. We stopped at the next water point and filled the tank, which might have been a tactical error, as plenty of boats went pas heading for the locks. When we made it to the locks, there were two pairs of boats ahead, so it would be a while before we got going. In fact, it was a good half an hour before we could enter the lock; with the number of boats around, I thought we’d definitely have gained a looking partner during the waiting time, but none materialised.
We met boats coming down at every lock, though, so it was a fairly good run up the six locks, completing them in a little over an hour. At the top we moored up, as Catherine, Nigel, and the kids were coming to see us. They arrived at pretty much the same time we did, so was had lunch on the moorings there.
Setting off again, we completed Braunston Tunnel without seeing another boat.
At the top of the locks there were also no boats going our way, so we set off down the flight. The top lock needed topping up, but thanks to meeting a couple of uphill boats the rest were full — apart from the last one. We had child labour to aid our passage too.
And this is Grace being a gnome.
We moored at the bottom of the locks, and sat around chatting for an hour or so, before Nigel headed off to the chippy in Norton to bring back a selection of fish, battered sausage, and chicken, and loads of chips. It’s been great catching up with the family, whom we haven’t seen since we came this way heading north in March.
13 miles, 13 locks. (133 miles, 76 locks)
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