Oldies On Tour

Meg A Star in last lock

Thursday 20th September; 152 days, 918 miles, and 672 locks since we bought Meg A Star, we have now decided to sell her.  We’ve had a really enjoyable time, a little disappointed several canals were closed caused by the brilliant Summer which created a water shortage.  The biggest disappointment was the closure of the Leeds and Liverpool but rather than keep the boat for another year, we can always hire a boat for a couple of weeks and do it later.  Apart from the canals we did this year, we also travelled the Kennet and Avon on Foggy’s Notion,Dave                                                             and  Leisha’s boat   

  As there are around 2,000-miles of navigable network, me thinks we’ve not done too badly in the time we’ve had, certainly scratched the itch I’ve had for many years.

It took us all Thursday to sort everything out and going to bed for our last night was interesting, picking our way through everything piled on the floor.

Friday morning, whilst I collected the hire car Christine scrubbed the boat from the bow to the stern, she looked so good that for a moment we wondered if we should keep her!!!!  I started to pack and just managed to squeeze everything in except, to Christine’s consternation, we had to leave her ironing board???.   I signed all the necessary paperwork and handed the keys to James Hillsop (Rugby Boats) for him to do the business.  It seemed a fitting place, it’s where we bought her from, so she’s going home.

P.S.   Less than 24 hours after we left her, we had an offer, and within an hour, we had completed negotiations and Meg A Star is officially sold.

Meg A Star

For the record, the routes and associated locks we travelled are detailed below.

Map of network

Up incredibly early, a quick breakfast, and walked swiftly into Town by 8.15am, TESCO first to stock up on food, then collect the curtains from the dry cleaners, and back on boat by 9.00am. Marian joined us very shortly, having caught the train from Chesterfield, so another early starter. We were on our way by 9.30am.

Swing bride at Market Harborough

First we did the swing bridge, which was half key operated, and half mechanical, the bit that was hard, was shifting the bridge, but with Marian and I pushing we managed it, when we came through last time we didn’t have to do it, so it was only fair we allowed another boat through at the same time, we found out later the lady had a broken arm, so she was very appreciative.
Then onto Foxton Locks, where we had to wait an hour before we

Foxton Locks

could start our trip, eventually at 12.45pm we were allowed to start, and Marian and I had a good system to work the locks, I love this place, there is something about it, we had ten locks in total, two blocks of five, and it took us 50 minutes to complete. Geoff and I had walked around earlier, but

View from the bottom

Marian took the opportunity to look at the Foxton Incline Plane remains, whilst we finished the last lock. We then went through the Husbands Bosworth Tunnel which was 1160 yards, amazing structures that were built so many years ago.
We travelled onto Welford, where Geoff wanted to go up small arm of the canal, but the guide book didn’t make it sound very interesting so we bypassed it, and moored up for the night, in a very quiet place.
We played Phase 10 and I managed to win, and an early night was had by all.
Next morning we had a lazy start, and travelled about ten miles, no locks, and a very easy day, Marian and I walked between bridges, just to keep the fitness up, a very very windy day. Arriving at Crick, we

Marian managed to photograph a kingfisher

filled up with fuel, and then stopped outside the marina, for another peaceful night. Another game of Phase 10, where Geoff was quite nasty to me, and kept skipping me, so Marian won the first game, and Geoff the second. Good night was had by all.
Our first part of our journey the next day was to go through Crick tunnel which was 1528 yards, this one seemed to go on forever, but we were out the other side and onto the Watford Locks, there I realised I

Watford locks

did not have my windless, Geoff had spoilt our routine at Foxton Locks and done the last paddle, and sadly he left my windless there! Oh dear!
I spoke to the lock-keeper and asked if he had any old windless’s and he said yes, so for a small donation, we were back in business again, another seven locks, which we completed it quick time, then onto the next set at Whilton Locks, unlike the

Whilton locks

Foxton Locks, these are back to the big double ones, seven in total, and very heavy, as well as being hard, there were 60mph winds, so Geoff was struggling holding the boat, a challenge to us all. The weather despite being windy was great, it was very exhilarating some of the gates weighed 1850kgs which were a challenge but we cracked it, I have to say, I appreciated

Marian relaxing in sunshine

Marian being with me, 24 Locks in total, (17 small ones and 7 doubles) whilst we were struggling at times, we had a good laugh!
Marian was supposed to leave us here, but as we were ahead of ourselves, we then travelled onto Weedon Beck, to the Heart of England Pub, where a taxi took her to Long Buckby Train Station, and home, whilst we travelled on, we stopped to fix our new fairlead cleat, which had sprung off and landed in one of the locks, I was a bit concerned as there was a strange lady wondering

Meg A Star in last lock of the day

around as if she was drunk, but we ignored her and got on with the job in hand. We then stopped at StoneHill Wharf for the night.

We left Foxton Locks junction Tuesday morning and headed to Market Harborough, 5 miles away; no locks but one swing bridge which we were told was rather heavy to swing.

We came up behind another boat who fortunately had already opened the bridge and to our surprise waved us through, lucky Christine, but

Market Harborough

as we passed through the “army” from the boat we had just passed told us to keep going, wonderful.

Market Harborough Basin

Arriving into the basin we were spoilt for choice until Christine visited the office, our choice then became limited to a couple of finger pontoons on just one side, still, after reversing stern-to, we tied off: we were

Market Harborough

staying put ‘till Monday.

We used our time wisely, we scrubbed the roof then washed down the boat and got the touch-up paint out.  No matter how careful we had been travelling around the network, there were always times when a bump or scrape was unavoidable.

Waterfront restaurant

We also came into a marina as we had to leave Meg A Star overnight near a train station; Market Harborough fitted the bill.

Friday evening, and Mark, Paula, and Ashleigh came over and we had a very

Geoff with the professionals

enjoyable evening, dining at the Waterfront Restaurant overlooking the basin.

Saturday morning we caught a train to Cheltenham as we were heading to a reunion of the 2017 New Zealand Lions Tour.  After booking into our hotel we meandered down to the bar where many of the “tour” had already assembled, a couple of hours before “kick off”.

It was a very enjoyable evening meeting up with my tour companions, re-counting the many stories, and all looking forward to the next Lions trip to South Africa in 2021.  As with all these rugby get togethers, there were three guest speakers, Thinus Delport and Johan Ackermann, retired Springbok players and Matt Perry, retired Lions and Bath player all “interviewed” by Gareth “Cooch” Chilcott, another ex Lions and Bath Player.  Apart from some interesting insights into touring, they were a hoot, couldn’t stop laughing.  There was a super buffet put on, enough food to feed an army, and a disco later in the evening.  It was an excellent evening and the most important success to come out of this was Christine telling people she would join me on the 2021

Geoff, Robin and myself

Lions tour of South Africa???.

We returned to MH on Sunday, though later than expected thanks to the total incompetence of Network rail.  Due to maintenance on the line, a shuttle bus was taking passengers from Derby to East Midlands Parkway, a simple 10 minute drive but no, we had a clueless driver who didn’t know the area and due to missing the turning off the Motorway, took us on a scenic drive; a 10 minute journey only took just short of an hour.  As expected there were 50-disgruntled passengers and the Network Rail representative just shrugged his shoulders, he couldn’t give a “####”.

Tomorrow we leave after a rather enjoyable visit to a buzzing small market town that seemed to cater for everybody.

After wandering about the Foxton Lock Junction where the Grand Union (Leicester Section of the Leicestershire and Northampton

Foxton locks

Canal) joins the Grand Union (Leicester Section of the Market Harborough Branch) and the Grand Union (Leicester Section of the old Grand Union) we met Margaret who was also out looking for us. We returned to Meg and moved up and moored directly behind “Doris”, Margaret and Simons boat and enjoyed catching up over a cuppa.

Martin and Marian arrived late afternoon just in time for a couple of pre-dinner drinks before we headed to the “Foxton Locks Pub” for dinner. It was a very busy pub serving “pubby” meals looking over the canal; still we had a good evening before they headed back to Flagg.

Marian and Martin

Sunday we joined up with Margaret and Simon and wandered up and down the locks, visited the Canal Museum before heading back to the same pub for a Sunday Lunch, where Margaret confused the young barman by asking for a sherry! All enjoyed a very congenial Sunday Roast, before leaving early afternoon.

This junction is situated at the bottom of a 10-locks staircase, 2-flights of 5 with a small, but adequate (just)

Top of the plane

passing area between. These narrow boat locks were built in 1810 but in 1900 an “inclined plane” was built, this is a system for raising boats between different water levels. There were two counter balanced caissons that the boats were carried “afloat” in. Not only did this method of moving the boats quicken up the process, the caissons were built to carry two narrow boats or one wide beam barge. This

Bottom of plane

enabled bigger loads to flow from Leicester to London or north, onto the river Trent and up to the North of England.   Unfortunately this marvelous piece of engineering came rather too late and was abandoned in 1911 then dismantled in 1928. I visited this site about 30-ywars ago and then they were raising funds to re-build it; today nothing has changed, they are still trying to raise funds to re-build it.

Sunday evening and we met up on Doris again for a fun packed evening of Phase Ten, it’s the “skip cards” the cause aggressive

The locks

humour you know!!!!! Later we said our farewells, as Margaret and Simon want to be first in the queue at 0800hrs to head up the Foxton locks. These locks and the surrounding area is a real tourist attraction and there are “Gongoozlers” everywhere hence Simon wanting to get through the locks during a quiet period. We won’t be doing them for another week. when unfortunately it will most probably be around midday, just when the world and their wives are around!

Monday was a lazy day as we were still getting over all the locks we had been through en route to get here, but we did make the effort to

Picture when the lifts were working

visit the site of the Incline Plane, our exercise for the day. Tomorrow we are heading to secure mooring in Market Harborough.