Ten miles, 6 locks and a tunnel

The morning was full of sunshine again which was much appreciated, and the 'moving the cars party' set off to do that involving a drive from Napton to Fenny Compton and then on to Welton, a  village near the exit from the Braunston Tunnel which was where we planned to moor for the night and the back to join the boat at Napton. 

The first part of the canal route is along a flat section of canal without locks, and winds its way around Napton Hill.  You get a good view of the whole windmill as you do that route, rather than just one sail that is now visible from the canal flight down the hill. 

The canal route is quite windy and passes Napton Canal Boat rentals before the Oxford Canal ends as it joins the Grand Union. The next six miles are windy in some places and it's interesting that there does seem to be a Law that ensures that you pass boats going the other way at constrictions such as bridges or bends.  We did that several times! 

We stopped for lunch at a piece of the canal where the view to the south was of an interesting hill and sweep of fields.

The sky was very satisfactorily blue, but there was a steady wind blowing from the east which we were facing a lot of the time. We passed this family of swans on the way.  They were the second family of six cygnets we saw in a very short distance. 

One of the swans was taking care to make sure that they were between us and the babies.  

This is the old metal bridge that you go under to turn right to go further down the Grand Union Canal.  There is a similar bridge to the left that connects the bit of green bank that you can see in the picture with the other bank - it's a bit like a triangular traffic island.  If you go to the left of the island you turn up the Oxford Canal North Branch which would take you to Brinklow where we were moored last year.  However, at the moment this is not navigable as there is a bank that has collapsed as a result of the very heavy rain earlier in the year. 

We arrived in Braunston at just after 4.00pm and had wanted to visit the rope makers shop again, but unfortunately they closed at 4.00pm so we couldn't.  We progressed on through the area and reached the first of the locks at the eastern end of the community.  There were 6 double locks to go up and we were lucky to meet people coming down at several of them, so the whole set was done in an hour and half which is pretty good for big locks.

Our final challenge of the day was the Braunston Tunnel which is 2042 yards long.  I played the melodeon through the tunnel which the men at the rear of the boat sang along to which was rather fun.  The interplay between the number of verses required from the back-end where the singing was and the front-end where I was playing was quite amusing!  

The view at the end of the tunnel is really lovely, especially in the late afternoon light. 

It's interesting how still the water that we were moving into was, judging by the reflections in the water.  We moored very soon after we had come out of the tunnel, a little way in behind the boat in the picture.  I cooked dinner which worked OK, and our guests had bought pudding at the local shop in Napton this morning, so we all felt as though all was well at the end of the day.