Woodford

Yet another day same again - cloudy early in the morning, blue skies with a cool breeze after we set out and hot weather in the afternoon.

Ditchford Lock

The first lock after leaving was at Ditchford where a unique, for the Nene, radial lower gate is used instead of the more normal guillotine gate.  The lock gate  consists of a horizontal rotating half cylinder and opens by rotating by 90 degrees so that the solid half is above the waterway.

Irthlingborough Bridge

Manual operation of Upper Ringstead Lock

The river then took us by Higham Ferrers and Irthlingborough through lovely countryside to Upper Ringstead Lock where we met the first of the 5 guillotine locks that are still operated manually.  The massive gate is raised and lowered by turning a large metal flywheel, I think about 200 times.  Lowering isnt too bad as the wheel largely turns on its own because of the weight of the gate but raising is another matter!

We moored at 13:20 just outside the large hill top village of Woodford on a FOTRN mooring beautifully located on a bend in the river.  We spent most of the afternoon in the local pub enjoying a chat and some excellent beer with Wunter Rose.

Totals:
8.14 miles, 5 locks, 3 hours 55 minutes