March week: Day 5

It was a beautiful sunny morning today.  I walked up the towpath, which while still quite muddy wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be, to the marina and my car — and drove to Gayton for a boat test.  The owners of the boat were heading out for a couple of days, so we boated down to Gayton Junction and turned right.  Ryan on the fuel boat, Southern Cross, was there serving customers, and came past us a bit later when we’d stopped.

Andy the photographer and I walked back to the marina and headed off.  I came back via Towcester, where I did some store cupboard shopping for things we’ve noticed we needed over the past few days.  I dropped the shopping off at the boat in Cosgrove, then returned the car to the security of the marina.  Once I’d walked back to the boat I had some lunch and set off.

While the sky behind me was still blue, up ahead was much cloudier, and there was a cold bite to the wind.  The canal is very full; the spill weir near Cosgrove has lots of water going over it, and as I approached my intended mooring at Grafton Regis, the weir their was also flowing well.  As I came in to moor I found that the flow on the canal was quite significant — when normally there’s hardly any.  Once tied up, I walked back to the weir to have a proper look at it.

My mooring has a view of the Manor House at Grafton Regis from the galley window, and the Tove valley on the towpath side.  The River Tove is well up, flooding the fields, and the extra water from the canal is only adding to it.

I suspect the river has put a lot of water into the canal at the bottom of the Stoke Bruerne locks, so turning there tomorrow could be either really easy or really difficult.

4 miles, 0 locks.  (32 miles, 4 locks)