Pre-Crick: Day 3

I got the train back up from London this morning after my night shift, and at about the time I was arriving at Milton Keynes Central, Adrian was setting off from Cosgrove.  I parked the car in the marina and walked over the bridge, just as Adrian was arriving.  It was 9am, on a lovely sunny morning.  Our trip to Stoke Bruerne was behind a very slow boat.  His tickover was much slower than ours, meaning we spend plenty of time in neutral, and he often seemed to forget to speed up again after passing moored boats.  Consequently it took two hours to reach the locks rather than the typical hour and a half.  In a field near Yardley Gobion, we saw a number of lapwings.  At the bottom of the locks, Catherine, Nigel, and Matthew were waiting for us — Grace has a weekend job, so she was off doing that.  A boat had just come down the bottom lock, so we and the boat we’d been following could go in.  Then with two lock side crew from that boat, and Adrian, Nigel and Matthew from our boat, we made rapid progress up the locks — none of which needed turning and between which we did synchronised boating.

We got to the top at just after 12, so the half hour we’d lost earlier we had regained.  An hour and five minutes is by far the fastest we’ve ever come up the seven.  There were plenty of people about enjoying the sunshine and watching the boats, and we felt very much like a spectator sport, especially at the top lock.  Lots of kids were put to work; Nigel said he had around ten little helpers with the top lock gate, but with a combined age of about 22!

We moored up in the village and had a picnic style lunch, and a good catch up with the family.  We set off again at 2pm, with Nigel going back to get the car while Catherine and Matthew came through the tunnel with us.  Matthew is a very good helmsman but had never steered through a tunnel before, so naturally I gave him the tiller.

We passed three boats inside, and managed to dodge the worst of the waterfalls from the ceiling.  Matthew really showed his skill in passing another boat on a bend just before Blisworth.  When we got to the mill, Nigel was standing on the bridge waiting for us, so we pulled in and said our goodbyes.  We might see them again at the Crick show.  At the railway bridge at Blisworth I just managed to catch a train going over, and then shortly after Galton junction was a field full of buttercups.

We could have stopped beyond Nightingales Bridge, but it seemed a bit early.  It was a bit too busy before New Banbury Lane Bridge, so we carried on round the corner and stopped just before Evans Bridge.  I see to recall stopping here at lunchtime the first time we came down this way, but we’ve never overnighted here before.

12 miles, 7 locks.  (19 miles, 9 locks)