Banbury

The penalty for the layover yesterday was an early start today, however that was not too arduous as the weather was fine and we mostly had the canal to ourselves for the first part of the trip.
A gentle womble (6 locks) saw us in Cropredy by 8.30 ready to water, shop etc.

Approaching Cropredy Lock

A patient Geoff waiting for me to enter the lock

However he had not been quite so patient when I did a couple of locks further back and instead of doing his death defying leap over one of the mitre gates to reach the other side, I walk all round to use the back gate......shades of Captain Grumpalong appeared........

We passed an extremely strident cockerel along the way

and also todays `des res`

opposite the des res was a neat little garden planted so someone might have been in residence!!

Another form of `des res` we passed.  If you look closely the Sign sayS RESPECT MY ENVIRONMENT.

Not far out of Banbury we pass under the M40
I always feel great when we pass under a busy road and consider how lucky I am to be down here and not up there.......

Then we were passed by 3 canoeists...a measure of how fast we travel

Is this the boat of Bones who writes in our canal magazine????  Or a copycat

And so into Banbury.  It seemed very quiet but I hung back whilst Geoff walked ahead to check that we could find space before Tom Rolt Bridge.  We were lucky and moored in our favourite spot just by the park but not quite in the centre. 

We were early enough for me to trot off and have a little retail therapy before lunch.

6.68 miles 10 locks, 4hr 47 min