Blue and sunny it was when we were ready to go this morning which was a very lovely start to the day. The first thing we had to do was open the lift bridge near our mooring. This required the effort of putting a key in a lock and pressing the up button until the lock was at the top, waiting for the boat to go through, and then pressing the down button - well within my capability first thing in the morning! I let another boat go through the other way before we were ready to go through - social as far as the boater is concerned, but meant that a couple of cars had to wait - they didn't seem to mind too much!
It's hard getting back on the boat at that point as there are a lot of moored boats along the canal so I walked along to the first bridge where it's easy to get on the boat. It doesn't seem to matter to me how many bridges there are on the canals, which all look rather similar, but the view through them espeically in the sunshine, always has an appeal.
The little bridge was good to climb up too as you got a good view down the canal and I could see our boat coming. We don't get many pictures of the boat on the move....!
This bit of canal has had some of its lifting bridges replaced and improved, and this one was the first obstacle we came to this morning. Our two friends volunteered to wind it, and to do some locks too - it's unusual for me to be left on the boat at the front and able to take some pictures. So this is a picture of what volunteers look like. You can't see the manacles or whips at all, can you!?
In fact they got so good at it that they encouraged a couple of lads from a family to open and close the gates at the next lock. This lock is a funny one at the bottom of the part of the canal where the River Cherwell joins the canal. Fortunately the flow was not great so we could go up the river section without any problems. The engine had to work hard against the flow! We also came up to one corner and a boat coming the other way with a crew of lads and cans of beer clearly in evidence was going much too fast with the current. We missed, so that was good.
The Cherwell and canal together make for a much wider waterway, and you can see the dog on the left of the picture who had collected a ball his owner had thrown for him. There is a path along one side of the canal/river but it's much less defined than the towpath usually is. There were lots of boats moving about today - partly because the weather was lovely, and partly because of the bank holiday weekend. It meant we often met other boats at the locks, both going up the same way as us, but also coming down which was very efficient.
This is the view you get sitting at the front of the boat as it goes into a lock to go up. You have to let the water into the lock carefully as it's easy to swamp the front if the boat is too far forward. Look at that blue sky!
The canal follows the course of the Cherwell all along the route today - it's very close to the path on the left. I took this picture because I think it should be called 'Green'. The canal took us through 8 locks going up the valley of the Cherwell with slightly higher ground being visible in the distance. The last lock we came through was called Somerton Deep - 12ft deep. It's right next to the house that is for sale that has no running water, no road going to it, but a small 33ft canal boat comes with the property.
Still no takers since we came this way 10 days ago!!!
We stopped just about the lock having travelled about 12 miles today, in sunshine and then later in cloud. As we finished the lock at 6.15pm it started to rain - not very hard and not for very long as it turned out, but enough to suggest to us that it was time to moor and cook dinner which we did, and over a gin and tonic and a bottle of wine we attempted to solve some more of society's challenges. We are diligent and persistent if nothing else!! Another lovely day.
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