Nearly back to Gayton Marina

As I hoped, the light at the end of the tunnel (which had not been turned off) where we had moored overnight was wonderful this morning. There was a fairly constant stream of boats going past, mostly going into the tunnel, but there were a few going the other way too.

The occasional pile up ensued!!


The boat closest to the tunnel was diffident about going in as a boat's headlight could be seen coming towards the tunnel exit, but the boat behind was not happy to have to wait, but couldn't practically get past the first one.  It can be a bit stressful at moments like this!  But we only had to wait and watch!! 
But you can also have moments of calm to enjoy, too!



The men went off to move the cars - pick up one from Napton and then leave one at Weedon and come back to the boat.  Meanwhile we washed up and then moved the boat along the flat section of water out of the tunnel and up to Norton Junction. It's a straightish section of canal but does have a number of bridges on it, and it seemed as though we met a boat coming the other way at every bridge.  You then have to judge whether you are closer to the bridge or the boat coming towards you and give way accordingly. Generally people are patient, and give way gracefully, as I did on a number of bridges!! And then there can be complications of moored craft which the other boat can't see, or shallow bits of canal.  Keeps you on your toes! 

Anyway, us ladies got the boat to Norton Junction and the men arrived quite soon after which was good timing.  We then set off down the 7 Buckby lock flight near the village of Long Buckby.  These are double locks, and the first 3 we went down alone, and then a chap and his partner waited for us to come through the third lock so we could do the remaining locks together.  That makes it much easier as there are 3 on one lock and I went on ahead to prepare the lock we were going into.

If it's only Chris and I travelling down the locks, this is a view I do not get as I am up on the lockside closing the gates after Chris has driven the boat out of the lock. I was at the last lock waiting for the boat to come out of the previous lock and saw this wave of water coming towards me as the previous lock was emptied.  It has a rather nice effect on the reflections. 

There are some pretty cottages by the last lock which have some flowers in the garden.  This one seemed to me to be pretty much in perfect flower.

We wanted to visit Weedon's Ordnance Depot again as we thought our guests would enjoy it, so we had lunch on the move and got to Weedon just in time to visit the Visitor Centre and the other buildings too which was good! There had been a convention of classic cars there in the morning when Chris had dropped his car off, but they'd almost all gone this afternoon.


The boys went to do the last car manoeuvre so we will have a car at Gayton when we arrive tomorrow, and I moved the boat along the canal a bit to a bridge where there is a pub and we knew parking would be possible so that our guests could remove their possessions from the boat!  This worked fairly well but there was a challenge with mooring.  A plastic boat was right in the middle of a long section of mooring space, but the spaces they had left either side were not long enough for our boat.  I tried reversing to a mooring 3 boat lengths back, but the combination of wind and very shallow canal edges made this a challenging task.  Fortunately a boat left it's mooring so I set of to occupy their space.  They said they were coming to rescue us which was very kind.  The mooring was at a water point, so we took the opportunity to fill up with water by which time the chaps had returned and our guests were able to assemble their stuff and leave the boat.  They were really good company and we had lots of excellent conversations about world issues, and more personal discussions about our motivations and decisions about how to support our children and so on.  Excellent guests -willing to help with everything, interesting, thought-provoking and definitely fun!  

This little chap came and joined us whilst we were filling up with water.  He was about a third of an inch long and very iridescent.


The boat behind us moved off as our guests left and so we moved into his spot whilst we went and had a quick dinner at the Narrow Boat Inn.  We then came back to the boat and set off to travel some of the 6 miles we still needed to do to get back to Gayton.  The air was getting fresher by about 7.45pm and so we have found a mooring which has fields and trees and birdsong and a railway line around us.  We have about 3 miles to go to get back to base tomorrow morning.  Chris has a call at 1.00pm so we plan to be home by then. 
 


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