Crickey how did that get there?

Miffed... thats what we would have been if we hadn't stopped yesterday when we did, so it was a good job we found a space to stop by Tesco! If we had gone through the bridge to moor up we would have seen this.

What has happened to all the moorings? These 'no mooring signs' are right up to the aqueduct.  One to mark in the Nicholsons I think, for future reference.

Not a great day for travel so one might ask oneself...why did we leave Rugby in the first place. Well, we have to be at Hawkesbury Junction by Wednesday morning so a someone from Enterprise car hire can pick us up. I suppose we could have waited to see if the rain stopped but this junction gets very busy, what with the pub as an attraction to hire boaters and, get the timings wrong, and not a hope in hell of finding a mooring. It was therefore around 7.30ish this morning that we up stakes and with 4-5 hours of travel, we felt we stood a good chance that most of the overnighters at Sutton Stop would have left.

A bit of a rant here as I was shocked by how much of the offside vegetation had encroached on the channel. If I had to stop once I had to stop a dozen times to avoid scratching FS's paintwork with oncoming boats. Why isn't something done for goodness sake! I've said it many a time but I'm sure the 'Big Wigs' of C&RT wouldn't run their nice shiny cars through tree branches and shrubs, so why expect us boaters to have to do it!

Such a shame but no more pretty lights in Newbold tunnel. Last time we came through there was only one purple left. Seems that bulb has blown now too.

Normal congestion at Stretton stops Just a slight nudge on the swing bridge and hold the boat in the narrows so Ian could get off.

Hmmm...a trip hazard?

 Wonder whats the obstruction is. A boat perhaps. Intriguing!

No sign that anything is submerged.

Looks like new edging is being installed.

We were spot on with the timings once we arrived at Sutton Stop. 30 minutes later and we would have missed out as several more boats turned up. As told to us by another boater on the 7-day moorings, last night you couldn't have swung a cat along the line of boats, so congested was it here.

 Okay....Has anyone any idea of how this plane got to be at the side of the M69.? We did a double take when we saw it. Some sort of fighter plane Ian thinks. It was seen roughly 1or 2 miles from the junction.

M69 in the back ground.

Blast and blast again. Ian has just discovered our batteries haven't been charged even though we ran for 5 hours. He checked the travel pack and it is very very dead! In a way, it's a good job we have a hire car for tomorrow as it looks like we will need to buy a generator!