15th Oct
It was quite noisy moored at the bottom of Buckby flight. Motorway and trains right on the doorstep, now I remember why we usually give this mooring a miss! We got underway by 8.30 am, many lock free hours ahead before reaching the top of Stoke Breurne Locks. On the way, a couple more sunken boats. CRT's hands are tied, difficult to get them removed, and plenty more throughout the system. It's a long-drawn-out process of finding the owner and more often most have been abandoned, which makes the process even harder
Gayton junction moorings had this boat near the junction. I thought the floating fenders a bit OTT, although the state of the boat was such that the slightest knock could have had it sinking into the depths!
We reached Blisworth Tunnel and time was getting on. Our window of opportunity to get through Stoke Breurne Locks was getting shorter. It had already taken us 4.5 hours from leaving Buckby, a cruise of 12.3 miles. A widebeam was waiting for its assisted passage through tomorrow morning. With the tunnel two-way, it has to be closed to narrow boaters 'cos one may have quite shock if this was met halfway through!
The race was now on to get through the tunnel as quickly as possible, as the lock would be closed at 2pm. Nearly 3 km in length, one can get a good head of speed if nothing comes the other way. At first all was clear but quarter way through and a headlight appeared. I continued to motor, it's a long tunnel, and they had only just entered. By the time I throttled back, the boat was getting close. On tickover and well on the right side, why was it not getting any closer? Crikey, it's not that blooming ghost again??? Those of you who are new to this blog, to see what I'm talking about, click HERE. Anyway, after a good while, I did eventually meet it. Blooming boat was almost stationary, no wonder it took an age to reach! This had all taken time, and we eventually exited the tunnel at 1.51 pm. I checked my watch! Anyway, we debated whether to just moor or give it a go to the locks, we chose the latter. 1.59 pm....that's when the volunteer lockkeeper saw us pulling onto the lock landing. I asked if we could go down, but my answer depended on whether we wanted to go through the whole flight of 7 locks or just the first two and moor in the long pound. We said to moor, so he helped us down both locks. Phew...that's the second time we have only just made the deadline. Chains once more went on as I descended the first lock, we were last boat again!
Only one other boat moored in the long pound, and the volunteer said it's been left unattended for a while. Tomorrow we make sure we are on the bottom lock landing for opening at 10am because we plan to get to Gifford Park. Friday our niece Jen and husband, Mat, (over from Australia) will visit. They are only in the UK for 5 days and Gifford Park has a nice pub where we can all meet at.
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