TRIP REPORTS

SPRING 2007 — SOUTHWARDS FROM BIRMINGHAM

Part 4 - From Stockton to Cosgrove.

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We continue the story with a couple of days' lay-over at Stockton while I was in London.

Many grisly trophies were brought in, but the cats were in for breakfast both days. I came back about 17:30 on Wednesday. We didn't lock the cat-flap overnight on the basis of the previous days' experience …….

….. which proved to be a mistake, as Tilly stayed out, From time to time she came back as far as the well deck to leave her latest trophy, but didn't come inside until well into the day. We set off at 13:57 and shared the first two Calcutt locks with nb Exe (former BW River Class, now converted). We stopped at Calcutt wharf for a pump-out and to fill up with diesel (at a good price, which we'd been told about by the Dykes). When we set off again, the water-point above the top lock was being used by Exe, so we didn't wait. There were pretty-well-continuous moored boats between the boatyard and the junction.

On to the Oxford Canal towards Braunston, we moored in the middle of nowhere, a bit before the puddle banks, as we expected all moorings in Braunston to be taken by this time of day. This time we did lock the cat-flap late in the evening

We set off at 9:53 and made our first stop at the facilities point between Braunston Turn & Braunston Stop where we took on water - a slow filler, in part because we were sharing the water-pressure with another boat. At Braunston Stop we joined the Grand Junction. We shared Braunston locks with Enid, one of the Northwich Trader boats built by RW Davis at Saul. It had a green Aga which Wendy coveted.

Braunston

Wendy had great difficulty shutting some of the bottom gates and the steerer of Enid had to climb up and give a hand. We were in the middle of a group of uphill boats with nobody coming down. On the summit we met a lot of traffic.

The visitor moorings at Buckby top were full, so we tied up alongside a BW mud lighter near the junction. I went to the New Inn for a pint and a sandwich - very good. We shared Buckby/Whilton locks with Impetuous with an efficient four-handed crew and a lovely Labrador/Springer cross called Angus. As always the flight felt very slow. There were plenty of boats moving both ways, but somehow the timings didn't ever mesh properly. Lots of very new lambs were evident in the fields beside the locks. Because of the slow day we ended up between bridges 22 & 23, before Weedon, short of where we'd hoped to be. We locked the cat-flap at about midnight.

We set off at 09:34. It was a slow run for the rest of the pound, with lots of moored boats and strings of boats coming the other way, including at just about every bridge-hole. We ourselves were at the front of a string. In Blisworth village Wendy heard a cuckoo and I saw Owen & Iris Brice in their garden. I steered through the tunnel and hated it - so full of diesel fumes that for much of the way the light from the lamp was bouncing straight back at us, making steering difficult. Fortunately we only met two boats. Even just outside the exit there was a very visible screen of fumes.

We had an efficient partner (with an unmemorable name) down Stoke Bruerne locks, and met several uphill boats - this time the timings did mesh and we had a good quick descent. There's a path all the way down the off side, although one needs to know where to cross the road before the bottom two locks. At Cosgrove all the visitor moorings were said to be taken, so we moored at 17:12 just on the "wrong" side of Solomon's Bridge, where we had moored with FC2 eighteen months ago, although with a longer boat this time we couldn't find good depth for the whole boat and had to moor arse-out. We walked to the Barley Mow for a good dinner and I got a taxi number for my next day's trip.

The taxi picked me up at 07:30 to go to Milton Keynes Central to travel to London - the first half of the journey was a rail-replacement bus whose driver managed to get lost! Nevertheless I was in London in time to do a few useful things at the Museum and have some lunch before leading a towpath walk from Mile End to Limehouse. As I left the boat I'd spotted that since we'd moored, Tony Clarke's Tug no.1 had moored between the end of the visitor moorings and the bridge (almost in the bridgehole), but the boat had moved on before Wendy was up and about.

During the day Wendy went to the camp-site shop for a newspaper (nothing acceptable), bread (no luck) and de-ionised water. She thought of eating at the pub, but it looked as though people had been booking since Christmas. However the trip wasn't wasted as she found a load of recycling bins in the car-park, so fetched a load of bottles & old newspapers from the boat. It was a lovely sunny day for loafing around.

Wendy found a Guardian and some wholemeal bread at the camp-site shop today. She had a pleasant chat with the man from a boat behind us whose home mooring was at New Bradwell. She cleared out the stove but put off cleaning the flue-pipe until we can be more sure of the weather. I overslept so arrived back at about 14:00, quite a bit later than expected. I was limping on a dodgy foot (some kind of strain?) so we didn't do any boating but lazed around. I caught up on e-mails and the log. There were a lot of boats moving again today, and a lot of canoeists. Among boats coming past us was Pat Barton on Quercus.

We slept incredibly late and still felt dozy, so we liberated that cats and decided to stay put for the day, which meant we had to have dinner at the pub again.