Saturday 28 June 2008

Welford Revisited

2 Locks, 8 Miles, 1 tunnel. Now moored between bridges 50 & 51 Leicester Line.

Welford Canal Basin

Some of the crew on both boats were rudely awoken at about 5am by a passing boat with an old fashioned engine which was apparently quite noisy. As for me I slept like a baby through the whole thing. However it made for an early departure with the idea of calling into Welford at the end of the Welford Arm as the crew on Kalimera had never been there.

Gypsy Rover moored for lunch at Welford

Except for the odd patch which may have been cleared by fishermen the towpath was seriously overgrown and in need of some TLC. We reached Welford by mid morning which allowed us all time to wander around and take in the sight's. After lunch we set off back down the Welford Arm with some ominous looking black clouds gathering on the horizon. We hoped that we were moving in the opposite direction to the clouds but that was not to be. After we had passed through the Husband Bosworth tunnel we came up behind a very slow boat and it started to rain so at the first opportunity we pulled in and moored up for the day about 2 ½ miles short of the Foxton flight.

Interesting wood sculpture in an old tree trunk in Welford.

Click on the photos for a closer look at the fox, squirrel, woodpecker and the owl.

At one stage we lost sight of Kalimera who following behind us today. After we had moored up Derek told us that the Canaltime boat that we had passed as we exited the tunnel had entered the tunnel and in trying to get past him had jammed both boats together in a narrow section of the tunnel. Needless to say Derek was not a happy chappie but luckily no serious damage was done.

1244 locks, 1814 miles, 43 Tunnels, 41 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

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