The next day we set off for who knew how far we'd get. I only knew that as with the Buckby Locks, we were at the mercy of my back lasting out for longer than a day. Double locks all the way now.
We were just undoing the ropes when we heard a boat coming around the corner from behind us, obviously we were looking for a Locking buddy to share the load with. Oh just our luck he's a single hander....
Anyway he pulled in ahead of us, tied up his middle rope and disappeared. David was saying that a single hander is better than being alone, I was less charitable..
Anyway with him tied up and disappeared we set off. We hadn't got very far when at a distance there he was again behind us.
Oh my word IT'S SUNNY!!!!
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| Saddington Tunnel |
Well oddly the following boat got further and further behind. The weather called for sunhats and short sleeves, first time since last summer I think.
Suddenly there was the unmistakable smell of slurry, unmistakable that is to a dairy farmer and his wife, there were gorgeous moorings but jeepers I couldn't have stood the smell for long. We joked about it with a moored up boat, the owners were sat at the back with coffees, she replied that it hadn't been so bad yesterday, but I couldn't imagine sticking it there for ten minutes let alone a night or two.
On we went and the first lock of today was getting closer, I didn't think we would wait for the single hander when he had dropped back so far. I filled the first lock and still no sight of him. We decided to go on alone.
Then just as I went around to shut the second gate, a different boat came into sight, completely unexpectedly too, it was the boat we had joked with about the smell. They said they too had been getting ready to leave but it hadn't looked like it, I wondered if like me they wanted locking buddies and we had come past so they jumped to.
They came into the lock and we worked nicely together. As the boats lowered, yes you've guessed it, that single hander arrived. In the end I felt a bit sorry for him, he must have been pig sick to see he just missed out on being with another boat.
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| First one of many today. |
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| Lovely open views today. |
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| Plenty of water about here. |
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| Our locking buddies for the day. |
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| That's David gone ahead, I told him to get a wiggle on and set the next lock. |
Well Reader the sun shone, but we did have to turn every lock bar one.
Eventually we landed at Kilby Bridge, that was after twelve locks. We'd turned eleven of them so in my book that made 23 locks. I was pretty shattered I have to say.
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| Close to Saddington was this not my taste house. |
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| But my god just look at the setting (apart form the trees) |
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| This pretty cottage had a public footpath running right next to it and a stream of dog walkers came past their lounge windows. |
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| Pretty much head height on the towpath. You could lose a small child in that. |
We moored up finally and David got my chair out, I sat in the sun and dozed.
We walked to the packed pub here in the late afternoon and got chatting to a chap who was moving a boat from Crick back to its base on the Trent and Mersey canal, it turned out that he had followed that single hander all day but the single hander had left open the gates at every lock, when the boat mover caught up with him at the final lock, his excuse was he was new to Boating and didn't know.
All sympathy vanished.
Tomorrow the last twelve locks down into Leicester. Phew.
Supper was salad rolls.
PS I am at home now, yes I know I'm all behind but in a day we are off to France for that joint boating holiday I told you about. I had hoped that I would have got this blog up to date before hand but C'est La Vie.
I'll do a mini post about France and then back to Leicester, well that's the plan anyway.
Au Revoir.
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