North again: Day 2

The moorings at Mountain Barn Bridge are really quiet, but perhaps because of the rain we didn’t see the bats in the evening like we normally do.  This morning was much sunnier than expected, and we set off at 8.30.  No-one was in the open air hot tub at the glamping place a couple of bridges along.

A couple of bridges further on the A14 tries to impose itself, but it’s only a brief interruption.

There are often rolling fields of crops alongside the canal (a lot of oats, I noticed), but there are also occasional glimpses of far reaching views.  I liked the line of wind turbines in the distance.

At Welford Junction, the canal appears to come to a dead end, but in fact there’s a right turn to Welford or a left to carry on towards Foxton.  We turned left.

A little further on, we thought we should get some diesel with a stop at North Kilworth Wharf.  There was a boat already there having a pump out, so we waited on the towpath side until they’d finished.  While we waited, about four boats went past.

We topped with diesel at a flat rate of £1.10 per litre, which seems to be a 90/10 split. We’d just untied and were pulling away from the wharf when a boat appeared coming past the moored boats, so they probably thought we’d deliberately got out in front of them.  There’s then a long cutting before the Husbands Bosworth Tunnel.

We passed no boats inside, but one was about to enter as we left.  There’s drizzle we’d had on and off for the past half hour of so then turned into something more like proper rain.  When we got to the big corner, the boat who’d had the pump up were just mooring up for lunch, and they appeared to have caught up with Barbarella, who’d gone by while we were waiting.  Being electric propulsion, Barbarella seems to travel quite slowly, and he immediately waved for me to go past.  As I was passing him, he asked me to slow down, which seemed an odd request given that it takes long enough for one narrowboat to pass another at the best of times.  The boat behind us also came past him at the same time.

We moored up just before Bridge 52 with a view of the Laughton Hills.  During the afternoon the sun has come back out again.  Occasionally, huge numbers of cows fill the field opposite, but then all disappear.

This afternoon I have spent quite a long time making the Crick Boat Show episode of my podcast, The Water Road (available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and many other platforms).  It was by far the most complicated edit so far and will be out at the end of next week.  Loads of boats have gone past, so we’re a bit concerned that Foxton might be full when we get there tomorrow.  But for the first time in ages, we have a good tv signal!

10 miles, 0 locks.  (15 miles, 0 locks)