Saddington

The weather was warm and intermittently sunny. Having discovered that the boat moored next to us,  "Buccaneer", with its two crew was planning to make the same trip as us, we waited until they were ready to leave and then followed them south on the Leicester Section of the Grand Union.  Throughout the journey the canal kept its lonely course avoiding all villages or any other habitation.

Approaching Kibworth Top Lock

Sharing the ascent of the 5 Kibworth locks (named after the village of Kibworth Harcourt, over a mile away) made progress pretty fast despite the gates and paddles being hard to operate and the wind causing the need for careful steering when boats entered the locks.  At two of the closely spaced locks one person went ahead and set up the next one whilst the other tidied up the previous lock after the boats had left.

Approaching Saddington Tunnel

Leaving Saddington Tunnel

A mile further on both boats moored at the nearest point to the village of Fleckney where we bought a couple of urgently needed groceries and the Buccaneer crew went to a pub for lunch.  We ate our lunch on board and then left Buccaneer to continue our journey passing through the half mile Saddington Tunnel and mooring for the day about half a mile further on equidistant from Saddigton and Smeeton Westerby.

Today: 3.7 miles, 5 locks, 2 hours 3mins travelling time