A pleasant haul to Napton.

We all had a lovely few days bowling along together making our way northwards up the South Oxford canal.  Frequent Flyers to this blog might remember that Amanda has a love of locking, an unusual love of doing locks so it seemed only sensible and KIND to get through the Napton Flight before we allowed them to leave.

You can see from the photo below that the weather was definitely changeable but I am not sure that we had much rain, just the threat of it, a bit at nights maybe.

Amanda taking her pleasure at Pigeon Lock

This is her special new coat too, so nice that the two of them have matching outfits. 

This is Dashwood lock where David C earned his lunch.  The trouble with allowing him to work the locks is that he gasses like mad and holds the show up.

So this is Dashwood Lock, this is the lock that had caused problems when the gate beam fell off.  This beam was either fitted in 2003 or 2008, I was told but can't remember now but I wonder what is the average time a beam serves?

You can see that they have now fitted a temporary arm to the, there's a sign attached saying to handle with care, it had a fair bit of movement when we pushed it as carefully and as gently as we could and I urge others to do the same!

Dashwood lock and the temporary arm.

Use this with the care you'd give a newborn baby.

Aynho Lock, the diamond shaped lock, filled mostly by water from the river Cherwell.

If you look carefully at the photo below you can see that WaL's nose is pointing to the canal, but the river Cherwell here feeds directly into the canal and into Aynho Lock.  It times of high rainfall this short section of the canal can go onto red boards.  The next lock is only just out of sight around the corner but it can be closed.  Not today thought but as I walked to the next tlock water was pouring over the lock gates. 

River Cherwell comes into the lock but also passes immediately to the left under the bridge.

Ooooo the tide took him!!!

There's the next lock.

Just look at the bendy lock landing here!

 

We made good progress, well its easy with two dedicated crew let alone three.  Someone always available to make the tea and over the course of the next few days we made it up the Claydon Flight where we met the lovely Frankie, she is the CART lady who attends, with others,  the Claydon Flight each morning near enough to ensure the water is flowing down and the pounds are full.

Frankie.

Les Deux Filles, well we're getting on a bit to be called filles, we met at college 43 years ago.

Amanda filming (or trying to) while doing a lock for her Instagram page. 

Amanda rescued this toad from being crushed by WaL in the lock and David L relocated it.

We easily did the Napton flight one sunny day, there were lots of boats using the flight so it was a easy one with boats in and out of empty locks.

On we went to the pub which is now a private house, but its on a main road where David could retrieve our car and drive The Boat Sharers to be reunited with their own car somewhere in another county.

As always we had had a fine time with the fine company, and we thank them for all their help.