Rediscovery Cruise: Day 5

We set off a bit before 8.30 this morning; I walked down to set Slat Mill Lock and Adrian brought the boat.  A couple more locks saw us entering Banbury, where we moored up at Spiceball Park.  The footbridge there leads to an industrial and retail park, and then over the road is a fairly new Waitrose.  We topped up with supplies, and Adrian picked up a new lock for the bow doors, ordered online from Toolstation.  The old one had long had a latch button that was about to fall off — and now it has, and has been lost.  Back at the boat, we were about to set off again when a stoppage notice came through, saying that the lift bridge in Banbury was out of action until 1pm.  We moved to the centre of town anyway, to claim a place in the queue!  Banbury is currently a building site.

We could see men in high vis jackets at the bridge, and fairly soon word filtered down that the bridge was fixed.  It was lifted, and four or five boats which had been trapped in the small space between the lock and the bridge came through, before boats heading south went and took their place.  There was a big drum of hydraulic oil there, so presumably they’d put some more in and sorted it out.

We were the third boat down the lock (the second one was a single hander whom Adrian helped) and we went onto the water point to fill up and start a wash load.  While we did that, plenty of boats arrived to go up the lock, and one also wanted the water point.  As soon as we were finished we headed off, having lunch on the move.  There is a huge new housing estate along the canal up to Bridge 170.  At Grant’s Lock, the recently fire-damaged lock cottage looks like a lost cause.

By contrast, Kings Sutton Lock is very pretty, and there’s a view over the hedge of the village with its impressive church spire.

Some of the locks had people coming up, at others we caught up with the single hander, who was grateful for the help.  We passed under the M40 three times during the afternoon. At Nell Bridge Lock it began to rain; Before the diamond shaped Aynho Weir Lock, the River Cherwell crosses the canal and passes under the towpath on a long bridge with arches, protected by wooden barriers.

As the county boundary follows the Cherwell here, we were now back in Northamptonshire.  It was now gone 4pm so we stopped on the piling before Aynho Wharf.

10 miles, 8 locks. (60 miles, 46 locks)