Week 7 Warwick to Hawksbury Junction 41 miles 28 locks.
We only stayed 1 night at the Cape of Good Hope, but in doing so I was able to say hi to Gook Vincent Herbert, who with his partner and friends was on a hire boat heading for the lock. There was a lot of hand gestures as Gook is deaf, and I don’t know sign language. But we managed to exchange pleasantries as they cruised by.
Only 2 locks next day, thank God, I ached all over. Whilst the Captain readied the boat I walk down to set the lock, only to see 2 boats in the lock below coming up, so being a helpful boater I opened the gates for them and helped them lock up.
We had been joined by another boat, NB First Dawn, which was great news for me. I got chatting to Shirley the crew as we did the locks, and found out it was a share boat. Her husband Dave would love to live on a boat, but she is less enthusiastic, but she enjoys the holidays and likes doing the locks like me. We only did 2 locks together as our plan was to get some shopping at Lidl (for a tapas feast next weekend), and then moor up in the MONW for the night, and they were heading for Long Itchington, they said they might stay for a couple of days, so we might see them again.
Next day and back to normal with 10 locks for me to do, including our first staircase locks of the season at Bascote. This type of lock has no pounds between them, and you use the water from the next lock to raise the boat, if you are going up like we were.
The canal was busy, and luckily for me most of the locks were set in our favour, and I spotted my second kingfisher of the season, the Captain missed it so now we are equal.
We moored at Long Itchington, which is a lovely village with 5 pubs, yes 5, but we decided to try only one on this occasion, the Two Boats which sits right on the canal. (We have been in all of them in the past).
https://www.wellsandco.com/pubs/68/the-two-boats-long-itchington
On our way to the pub there was a beautiful black cat on the towpath, it lived on NB Majestik and we got chatting to her owner, who reminded us both of the actress Miriam Margolyes. We had a long talk about boaty things and putting the canal world to right.
So at the pub, the Captain had to make do with DNA by Charles Wells, a bitter, but he said it was okay. We sat outside in the sun and who should come a long, Shirley and Dave. They joined us and we chatted about this and that.
Next day and 13 more locks, we decided to wait for Shirley and Dave to share the locks, not knowing that the boat moored in front of us, NB Muddle Puddle were waiting for them too. This meant we were billy no mates once again, and had to follow them up the Stockton flight. We didn’t really mind, we have our own routine for doing locks and it works well for us.
It was a lovely hot sunny day, and whilst I waited for the locks to fill or empty, I watched the pretty blue tits using all their acrobatic skills on wafer thin branches collecting food for their young.
At Calcutt locks we met up with NB LXI (Lexy) and its butty Countess, it slowed us down a little, but I went up to help out and we were soon through the last lock of the day.
After a late start we headed for Braunston, the canal was like the M1, with lots of movements. At one corner we met a hire boat coming the other way, and right towards us, the Captain took evasive action and managed to avoid a collision. We then followed NB Two Jays for a while, to start with they were all over the canal, its Captain was trying to steer sitting low down, and couldn’t control the boat or see were he was going. He soon realised he needed to stand up, and things got better from there. We passed them as they moored up, and found out they had only had the boat a short time. They will soon get the hang of it.
As we passed through Braunston, which some call the spiritual home of narrowboats, including the guy I recognised painting his boat. It was non other than Mr Robbie Cummings himself on NB Naughty Lass. For those who don’t know Robbie has a programme on BBC 4 called Canal Boat Diaries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2023/18/canal-boat-diaries-ep4
We have met Robbie before on the Wolverhampton flight, but our boat was blue then so he didn’t recognise us (not surprised). We had a quick chat before continuing on our way.
Although we were not intending to do the 3 single side by side locks at Hillmorton, we changed our minds and decided to get them out of the way. There were a couple of lockees on who helped us a bit, and we were soon down and moored up just round the corner. The lockees told us they had had a very quiet day up to that point, well it didn’t last as boat after boat passed us going in both directions.
https://www.hillmortonlocks.co.uk/
The Hillmorton locks were the last locks on this journey (well a part for the little stop lock at Hawksbury Junction), and I wasn’t sorry at all. After an early start, but not as early as some, we headed for Rugby and Tesco just to pick up some essentials, then on to Hawksbury. On the way we passed Precious Jet, our mate Steve’s boat, moored at Armada Wharf, the Captain contacted him and found out he was moving his boat to Hawksbury next day, so we organised to meet up and go for a meal at the Greyhound.
The day was lovely and sunny, and we thought the pub would be packed, it was busy outside but almost empty inside, bonus. We got a table and had a very enjoyable time with Steve and Yvonne.
Next day and time for Tapas, Col and Mags joined us for the afternoon, and it finished the weekend off very nicely.
As we have a week to kill we have decided to head up the Ashby Canal before going back to Coventry, but that’s for next time.
Wow! That was an interesting read and bought back lots of memories. Have sent you a DM H. Hope you have a fantastic holiday. Xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, glad you enjoyed the blog xx
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