I opened the side hatch first thing this morning while I got the breakfast things ready, and could hear a sort of crunching noise. It took me a long while to spot a squirrel in the hawthorn bush on the towpath, hanging upside down from a branch munching away.
I’d been feeling a bit migrainey last night and this morning, so we were a bit slow to get going. We set off as the church clock struck 9, with Adrian walking up to the lift bridge. He then signalled that there was a boat coming the other way. It turned out to be Alex and Alan on the Braidbar boat, Hollingworth. It meant Adrian didn’t have to use the key of power to raise the bridge.
Even with two boats going through, there was only one vehicle held up in each direction (albeit there are three directions). As we approached the three Baddiley Locks, it became clear that a moored boat was loose at the bow. Adrian jumped off to try to sort it out, while I continued in order to get out of the way of a boat coming the other way. In the end, they helped push it back in, and Adrian was able to re-tie it. Fortunately its chain was still in the piling, and there was more rope wrapped round the T-stud.
As the other boat had just come up, the top lock was in our favour. Then we met boats at each of the other two locks. Before the Swanley Locks, we passed the latest in a series of glamping offerings, a little holiday hut on the offside.
There’s an even nicer one on the other side of the bridge, with a shady terrace on the end where this week’s occupants were finishing up breakfast. We met boats at Swanley Locks too, then carried on to moor before Bridge 1 and the Hurleston Locks, in exactly the same spot we had a week ago (but facing the other way). We hadn’t been here long when a familiar boat appeared. What A Lark moored behind us, and we have a drinks invite a little later this afternoon. In the meantime, we walked up to get the car, and Adrian popped to Morrison’s for a prescription.
6 miles, 5 locks. (57 miles, 30 locks)
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