Locks galore!

On Wednesday we did the 17 remaining locks to Kingswood Junction.   Such beautiful and tranquil countryside.  The sun was shining for us, although the one and only boat that appeared to be around was just in front of us!!!

Distinctive Stratford canal bridges

Boe is busy with the camera still looking for wild life.

Not a breath of wind

The familiar lock keepers cottages (or ex lock keepers cottages)

The trusty crew.  It makes a tremendous difference
having an extra pair of hands when there are lots of locks.

needs the gardeners attention!

Boe found a friend

Timeless

I wonder if those poor people on the M40 know there is a better life down here
How lucky we are

We reached the top about lunch time but the water point was occupied...a boat drew up just as we were emerging from the lock!  However nothing was desperate so we carried on round the corner to moor.   Later we all took advantage of the hot showers.  Our shower is still not functioning properly.  Despite having plenty of hot water it lets us have some for about 30 seconds and it goes luke warm...a job for the winter methinks.

Just after 6 Geoff walked Boe and her large suitcase up to the station to catch her train....she is back to London for a couple of weeks before flying out to Vietnam for her new job.  We shall miss her on the boat.

Today we had another reasonably early start (8am) and reached the top of the Hatton flight about 10.  Much to our joy soon after we moored up to empty the loo and also to buy our bacon & egg baps from the cafe, another boat pulled up.  Considering there seem to be very few boats around we were fortunate.  So we had the company for the trip down of David & Helen on Petmar.  The sun shone again for us and we took it gently just opening one paddle and one gate.....no sense in over exertion.

We decided to call it quits after 17 locks and stopped for the day just below lock 30.   Four more to get to the bottom of the flight.

Wednesday 

Total distance:5.88 miles 

Elapsed time:5h1m27s 

Locks:17

Bridges:18 
Average speed:1.17 mph (4.36 lock/mph)

Thursday
Total distance:6.30 miles 
Elapsed time:4h51m22s 
Locks:17
Bridges:12 
Average speed:1.30 mph (2.94 lock/mph)