Back to base and back home

 Sunday morning was a bit overcast, but not raining which was pleasing.  We had a little way to go to get to our first lock - it is a flight up to Stoke Bruerne which is a little village with a significant canal culture centre - there's a museum there and also the start of the Blisworth Tunnel which is a feature of interest.

We left our Cosgrove mooring and came to this bridge which is very unusual.

The shape is interesting with a path on both sides of the canal under the bridge. We were following a wide beam boat for this section and you can see that it pretty much fills the canal in front!  The canal guide talks about the carving on the bridge - it looks a bit damaged to me, presumably worn away over the last two hundred years.

There had been some rain overnight, and the canal levels seemed pretty high.

The bottom of the lock flight is a few miles further on.  For the first time for a long time on this route, there are actually 7 locks within walking distance of each other.

It is definitely a different process from coming on locks that are spaced out.  

This is the view back from the second lock up.  As you can see, the sky was pretty spectacular.  

We got up to the penultimate lock pound which was very low - in fact when we got to the lock the boat was bumping along the bottom and barely floating to get in.  Chris let down some water from the pound above which brought the level up a bit which was reassuring.  So we arrived in Stoke Bruerne and stopped to have some lunch before we went through the tunnel and turned up to the Gayton Marina.  

We moored up and then I took Olga and Ina to Northampton Station so they could get the train back to London.  Unfortunately, the track had been damaged by flooding, so they had to get a bus replacement service to Milton Keynes and then the train from there.  Our usual route home had been unaffected by the flooding - we do not usually come along the A421 - so we got home early Sunday evening. 

It's been a great trip. We had made good decisions about its timings, as the Thames has been closed and is still closed for the last 2 weeks.  We have met some great people and travelled with them for more than a few locks which has been really good and different from our past experience.  It feels strange to be home, but we are getting used to the stairs and more regular life patterns!!

And then we shall have to plan the next trip....