Oldies On Tour

Friday 19^th October

We were up fairly early, as we needed to get going; firstly we had to “pop” into Morrison’s for a few essentials such as wine and gin!! Then we had to visit the Northampton Marina to get our permit to get onto the Nene.  The Grand Union Canal, Northampton Branch stops just after the Towcester Road Bridge at which point when you leave the lock you are on the River Nene.

We moored opposite my old apartment:  Morrison’s is about 1 minute from where we were moored so managed to get in, complete our shopping and get out and on our way again, very quickly.  Our next stop was Northampton Marina, rather than drive the boat in we moored and I walked across, well that in itself was a challenge as the council seem to be building a bridge over the river so I had to pick my way through this building site before I could get to the walkway across the river and into the Marina.

Once in the office, silly me thinking this formality would only take a few seconds was dumbfounded by the forms I had to fill in.  It was a 5-page questionnaire, about me, the boat owners and the boat itself,: several questions of which I had no idea of the answers, still eventually it was “sort of completed” and after paying my money for a 7 day permit and an extra £10 for a lock key I was on my way.  Incidentally, this form has to be completed if one wants a 1-day permit or a 1-year permit; it’s a government department, which says it all.

The total time taken meant that our early start wasn’t early at all,

still we were on our way by mid morning and immediately into the first Nene River Lock, straight forward with Christine and her Sister Pat, working the lock gates.  The next 2 or 3 locks were interesting; the paddles were like nothing we had seen before, quite confusing, as it wasn’t obvious if they were open or closed, still the girls sorted them out but the other issue was these paddles needed 100 turns each to open them and another 100 turns to close them, very tiring!

Once we had completed these 3 or 4 locks the next ones were what they call “guillotine” locks.  Heading downstream as we were, to enter the

locks we had the usual 2 manual gates with their paddles to open and close but at the other end there was this giant electric/hydraulic metal guillotine lock gate, which seemed to take ages to lower (to fill the lock with water before we entered) then rise to let us out.  We had to leave these gates in the open position so though they held us up being so slow, when we return later in the week we know we can just drive straight into the locks and without Pat, this will be useful.

The river Nene at times is very wide, yet in other parts it is a narrow winding canal with overhanging trees and reeds stretching into the main stream; apparently this is a little used river, possibly because it empties out into the Wash and narrow boats wouldn’t be too good in the “wash” therefore have to retrace their steps.

Along the way, Pat gave Christine a nature lesson, picking out the various birds etc.  We also spotted a number of sheep in the river; presumably they must have slipped whilst trying for that very tasty bit of grass; very sad as they were just left where they drowned

We eventually arrived at our destination, Wellingborough tired and hungry.  Fortunately we had no trouble finding a mooring next to Victoria Park, very nice but opposite Whitworth’s Factory and their neighbours, a disused factory!!! Still we pulled the curtains and shut them out.  Christine made a very tasty Spaghetti Bolognese; we enjoyed a bottle of wine then sat down to play cribbage, as again, we couldn’t get TV.  Being tired, we all had an early night and tomorrow we are staying put as we have Martin, Marian and Russell meeting us for lunch.

 

Thursday 13th October 2016

Today Pat is arriving, so we walked into Northampton, had a KFC for lunch on route, and then walked to the station, where we sat down and had a coffee waiting for the train. Surprise surprise on time, Pat arrived.

We walked back to the boat, I cooked dinner, and we played crib in the evening. A quiet relaxing day.

Wednesday 12th October 2016

Up early a beautiful sunny day, blue skies, we left early as we have a long way to go today. We started before breakfast, normal routine washing machine on, first stop water. and take in breakfast as well.

We travelled on for eight miles, then stopped at Gayton, as we wanted information on Northampton and the River Nene, well that was a waste of time, they couldn’t help, so we decided to keep going. We turned onto the Northampton arm part of the Grand Union, to face a notice, which read flight of 17 locks to Northampton, so off we went.

We started at 12, we should have stopped for lunch before we started, but we decided we would stop in the middle, easier said than done, so we just had to keep going. I did nine locks then we stopped over, by this time we were starving, it was 2pm, so when we were in the lock, I ran down and prepared a chunk of cheese and biscuits, that kept us quiet for a little while. We met several boats and they left some gates open, which helped us, and when we saw someone coming we did the same. It was nearly 4pm when we had got to lock 14, and pouring with rain, we were soaked, and I was getting cold and tired.

The sun came out again, and we kept going, we finally arrived about 5pm, I quickly made dinner, as Geoff is meeting Mark tonight, I am having a quiet night in, I am shattered.

Tuesday 11th October 2016

Woke up cold at 5am, Geoff was already awake he couldn’t sleep, we put the central heating on and went back to sleep.

I woke at 8am decided to put kettle on, and Geoff made tea, been lucky whilst we have been away, he has made it most mornings.

The sun is out again, and off we go, we stopped to pump out the sewage, but the man couldn’t get his machine to work, so we started the locks instead, and there were a lot of them.

We are back to two boats in locks, the people we were with seemed very slow and I ended up doing most of the locks.We came out of one flight of locks to go into a tunnel which was over a mile, neither of us likes it, it seemed to go on forever, glad we didnt meet anyone coming the other way! Not sure I want to go back that way.

We stopped for lunch before we attacked the second flight, at the end of that, we found another pump out station, which worked this time.

We drove on for another hour to reach Wesson, where we stopped for the night.

Had some dinner, then went for a walk, guess what we found another pub.

Monday 10th October 2016

Woke up to thick fog, we were going to start early again, but we delayed a bit, but still headed off, through the fog, it was very eerie, and so very pretty with the dew on the grass, sunshine trying to break through. We stopped again for water, had poached eggs for breakfast whilst the tank was filling up, then started again. By which time the sun had burnt all the fog off.

What a fabulous day we have been so lucky with the weather, we did nine locks, six of them were a flight at Napton, we did twelve miles altogether, and decided to stop where we had turned right, where the canal split, either going to Coventry or London, we chose London. We are now on the Grand Union Canal, where the locks are bigger. So we will face that tomorrow.

We stopped at Braunston, at a pub, would you believe, we walked up to the Town, which was a typical Northampton village with the stone walls everywhere. The church is huge and can be seen from a long way away, massive tall spire. Also in the village was an old mill, which is no longer working. We couldn’t get passed the pub, as it started raining, so we called in for a quick half, or in Geoff’s case a pint.

When we came out, it had stopped again, so we headed back to the other pub to have a meal, I fancied steak, Geoff had a mixed grill, naughty naughty, starving tomorrow. They had an offer on, two main meals for the cost of one, can’t be bad. Geoff had a disappointing role poly, when the guy asked him if he enjoyed it, he said No, so they didn’t charge him! Apparently a lot of people have complained, it was nothing like the original roly poly, more a sponge with jam in.

Early night I am shattered.

Sunday 9th October 2016

Up very early, we have decided to go for it today. We have Pat, Marian Martin and Russell arriving in Northampton on Saturday, we are not sure if we can make it or not! We have 49 miles to do, which doesn’t seem a lot, but we only average about 8 miles a,day.

Today I woke at 7am, and decided that we should get up, move boat and fill up with water, and then have breakfast whilst we are doing it, again we set the washing machine, so that we could get maximum water.

We left the water hole at 8.30am, and faced our first lock and lifting bridge, these locks have two doors at the beginning, but the far gate has only one, so harder work, as you have to walk further, and the gate at the end, is usually harder to open.

As we were travelling along, we noticed we did not have the extendible ladder, we know we had it yesterday, which means someone must have stolen it whilst we were in Banbury yesterday, very annoying as it was secured to the roof, what are people like! Geoff used stronger language.

It’s a beautiful day, blue skies, and plenty of sunshine, but it has started to get colder now. The trees are gradually turning golden, and there are so many red berries around at present. The birds will not starve this year.

We didn’t stop for lunch we kept going, so no pub today, we climbed the Claydon flight of locks, only five this time, and we were lucky with a couple of them, as other boats were coming out, enabling us just to go in, without having to do anything. Today we did alternate locks, as Geoff wanted to do some, I actually prefer to do the locks than drive, but have to be fair!

Altogether today we did fifteen miles, fifteen locks, and two lifting bridges, the

canal was very twisty, so we had lots of bends in the river,
and apart from the last half an hour, when it started raining, it was another lovely day. We stopped as soon as we could find a suitable mooring place, in the middle of nowhere, watched Strictly and Poldark.