Sunday 1 April 2007

Crows V Hawk.

0 locks, and 5 miles now moored at Market Harborough.
Total of 185 locks and 1771/2 miles and 3 Tunnels since 5th Nov 2006

As Dot needed to post a parcel to Tracey in London ASAP she walked into the village of Foxton as the Nicholson book showed there was a Post Office. However WAS, was the operative word as it doesn’t exist any more, typical.
So a quick change of plans saw us head off for Market Harborough several days ahead of our planned movements in search of a P.O there.

On the way we passed the usual ploughed fields and could see where sludge from the recent canal dredging had been deposited on the fields as compost and ploughed in. On one particular field there was a real shindig going on with what appeared to be four crows on the ground fighting and about 20 circling overhead. However it turned out to be a hawk that had come too close to the crows nesting area and 3 crows had the hawk on the ground and attacking the hell out of it. Eventually the hawk escaped and we were treated to a magnificent aerobatic display as the hawk tried to out manouvre all the crows in the air before finally making a safe getaway.
We also passed a factory with a very old looking brick chimney which was still in use but a lot of the plant was far from old being stainless steel. There was a pungent sort of smell in the air that neither of us good identify but we thought that it might be a fertilizer works.

Arriving at the canal basin we found it to be full with just one 48 hour towpath mooring available that we might just squeeze into.
As luck would have it the boat at the front of the mooring was just about to leave giving us plenty of room. This area must be a popular destination or somebody is out to make money because overstaying the 48 hours will cost you ₤10 a day. We haven’t enquired about the moorings in the actual basin which is full of Canaltime or Tillerman hire boats as they are now known but I bet they don’t come cheap.


So we will have to make the most of the 48 hour mooring and then move out of town a wee way for the rest of our stay here.

Union Wharf, Market Harborough basin

No comments: