Familiar territory.

3 Locks, 9 Miles. Now moored at Brownsover Park.
590 locks, 740½ miles, 18 Tunnels, 37 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

This morning as we were getting ourselves organised for the day n/b Martlet went us with a friendly wave. We met Iain and Myra at Lechlade on the river Thames. We had hoped that they would stop somewhere along the way so we could stop for a chat but alas there has been no sign of them. Hopefully we may catch up with them over the next week on our way to Coventry. We did pass n/b Debdale who's skipper complemented us on our web blog .

The trip was pretty uneventful except for the above bridge which had suffered severe damage possibly by farm machinery passing over it. The Hillmorton locks were busy so it was a case of one out, one in, in fairly quick succession. Once through the locks we stopped for water and then moved up to the 48 hour moorings for lunch. With the sky becoming overcast we pushed on to Rugby where we got the last mooring available on the park side of the canal.

After mooring up I went for a walk and met Mike Stevens on Felis Catus III and had a chat. We have been following Mike’s website since before his present boat was built. After this I went further along the canal hoping to find n/b Martlet with out success. On the way back to the boat it started to rain but I was close to Masters Bridge No 58 so I ducked in under there to shelter until the downpour stopped. Two passing boats had the same idea because it was a real heavy downpour; luckily there was enough room for both of them. As soon as the rain eased we all went on our separate ways again.

We did a quick shop at Tesco’s and picked some more blackberries before returning to the boat.