Another lovely mooring. Last evening, we were watching a wren (or possibly two) bobbing about in the tree opposite and repeating going to where their nest must be. This morning, as we were on our own, we got the washing machine going before we set off. We had only a couple of miles to do before reaching Foxton Locks, and although it was fairly sunny it was also very breezy. When we got to the locks at around 10am there was no-one waiting, so we had hopes of going straight down. But on checking in with the lock keeper we found there were three boats about to start up. We walked down to the shop at Bridge 61 to get some bread, and found that two more boats had been added to the uphill convoy. It was therefore a wait of about an hour and 40 minutes before we started down.
The whole place was really busy, both with boats and people. There were two more to follow us down, five more waiting at the bottom, and two more arrived at the top. Plus there were lots of families on half term, with many of the kids eager to push gates. It was all good material for a future podcast!
Once we got going, it only took about 40 minutes to get to the bottom. We’d thought about going down the Market Harborough Arm, but we know a lot of boats that were at Crick were heading that way. Instead we went through the bridge on the mainline towards Leicester, and stopped on the water point.
We had lunch while the tank filled, and then just pulled back a boat length onto the two day moorings nearest the bridge. This afternoon I had an appointment at the Inclined Plane Museum, which is only open at the weekends, to do a podcast interview. The Inclined Plane was a boat lift which replaced the locks briefly from 1900.
The area around Foxton Junction has some of the most confusing mooring signs I’ve ever seen. How a mooring can be lock only, service only, and one day all at the same time I have no idea.
3 miles, 10 locks. (18 miles, 10 locks)
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