Tuesday 14 August 2007

Hold ups galore

12 Locks, 7 Miles. Now moored above Claydon top lock.
578 locks, 711½ miles, 18 Tunnels, 37 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006

After an early morning visit to the famous Tooleys boat yard for some bolts we set off about 9am. We had a great run to start with as there were lots of boats heading south from Cropredy and all the locks were in our favour.

Once we reached Cropredy it was a different story. The Cropredy festival organizers were busy clearing up the rubbish as we passed between their camp site and festival site.

Arrival at Cropredy lock saw us 5th in the queue for the lock and this was the norm until we reached the Claydon flight. With more south bound boats appearing later in the day this helped split the boats up but it was still slow going. We finally moored up about 5.15pm making it the longest and slowest day we have had in the nine months living aboard.

Waiting in a lock queue we spotted some more babies, Piglets this time.

We bumped into another email correspondent from back in 2004/5, New Zealanders, Keith McIvor and his wife Bronwyn aboard their narrowboat Kotuku. Keith emailed us for information prior to getting their boat built and they are now living the dream. Yesterday we also met Hugh and Jane on n/b Poetry in a lock. They are another Kiwi couple enjoying the canal lifestyle which unfortunately will be short lived as they only have NZ passports and have to leave the UK at the end of October. Their boat will be up for sale at Braunston Marina very soon. A good buy for somebody.

As we moored up tonight we were passed by another of our fellow countryman proudly flying the New Zealand flag. Unfortunately we never had a chance to chat. This makes a total of 4 New Zealand boats in 24 hours. I wonder if there are any left at home?

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