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| Passing The Two Boats Inn near Long Itchington - we didnt stop! |
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| Densie and Niarbyl Bay entering the 2nd staircase lock |
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| Denise drives Densie into the 3rd Bascote Lock |
A lock filled day as we descended the 10 Stockton Locks and the 4 Bascote Locks, the latter includes the only staircase lock on the Grand Union main line where one lock's bottom gates form the top gates of the next lock. As with many of the other Grand Union double width locks working these are hard work with heavy gates to open and close and stiff paddle gear. Fortunately we were able to share the whole journey with narrowboat Niarbyl Bay owned by a couple from Wigan. Sharing makes everything much easier as there is of course twice the labour but also two boats keep each other in place whilst the lock is emptying or filling reducing the need to tie the boat into the side. It also enables one crew member to go ahead to set up the next lock whilst the other looked after the boats in the current lock speeding up the passage considerably.
The journey itself was very enjoyable in sunny weather with attractive scenery and many other boats on the move or moored up. We arrived at out moorings out in the countryside at 12:50 after 3 hours 40 mins on the move covering 5 miles and 14 locks.
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