Royal Leamington Spa

As we travel north west on the Grand Union Canal the isolated rural Eastern countryside is being replaced by the industrial Midlands towns and villages that surround Birmingham.   After a journey of 4.5 miles and 6 locks accompanied by a hire boat from the Ashby Canal with a crew of 6 out for a week we moored in Leamington just before noon.

Moored in Leamington looking west

Moored in Leamington looking east

The canal passes through the southern part of the town perhaps half a mile from the town centre.  To be honest it is fairly grim in places with graffiti, industrial buildings and old housing.  We saw our first dumped shopping trolley of the trip, half out of the canal water.  .With some misgivings we left the boat and walked into the town centre.  Completely different!  A large and interesting area with wide streets lined by buildings dating from the relatively short period in the 19th century when Leamington was a successful spa destination.  As well as the national chains there are many small shops.  Well worth a visit.  But it's a shame that the town doesnt make more of its canal.

A feast of locks

Passing The Two Boats Inn near Long Itchington - we didnt stop!

Densie and Niarbyl Bay entering the 2nd staircase lock

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.

Ventnor Marina

So far our return trip from the Fens has simply reversed our trip out.  Today however we diverted from our outgoing route at Braunston Junction by continuing on the Grand Union Canal towards Birmingham so that we can attend our booked concert there on 16th September.  

From Braunston the canal takes one along the Braunston Puddle Banks, a long embankment created over 200 years ago as an improvement to Brindley's original  meandering route.   It is a few years since we made this journey and were impressed by the attractive rural scenery enhanced by the sunny weather.    On reaching Napton junction where the Oxford Canal goes south to meet the Thames we turned north passing down the 3 Calcutt locks.  Despite being of double width like those at Buckby and Braunston they are much easier to operate and accompanied by another narrowboat made the descent in about 30 minutes.  Soon after leaving the locks we turned into Ventnor Marina where we will spend the night.  A total journey of 6.8 miles and 3 locks in 3hr 20 mins.

Ventnor is owned by the same company who own our home marina and so we get access to the facilities and free moorings.  We had a pump-out, filled up with diesel and plugged the boat into the mains electricity supply to fully charge the batteries.  The marina has a washing machine and tumble drier so Denise was able to do the final laundry we will need before we get home.

Braunston

Approaching Braunston Tunnel

We left at 8:30 and paired up with narrowboat Cookley for the 7 Buckby locks.  The repaired gate worked perfectly and we had an easy journey helped by the steady flow of boats coming down the locks - each lock was set ready for us when we arrived.  After filling up with water at the top of the flight at Norton Junction we continued on through Braunston tunnel where we met (from memory) 4 boats travelling in the opposite direction - much busier than we normally experience.  After stopping for a short time for lunch we carried on down the 6 Braunston Locks paired with another narrowboat to arrive at the canal centre of Braunston at 15:15.

In the afternoon we walked into the village to buy a new chimney for the boat, the previous one having been bent by a low bridge, some groceries, and a decent beer in the Old Plough.

Waiting for a lock repair

Grand Union Lock 12 on the Buckby flight has been a bottleneck for about 10 days as one of the two top gate heel post had been damaged preventing the gate opening and CRT were pulling boats one at a time through the lock by hand.  A repair was planned for today which would require complete closure of the lock.  We understood it would be complete by midday so we set off early to secure a good place on the queue of boats awaiting the reopening.

CRT working on the lock gate

Attaching the balance beam to replacement metal bracket

Balance beam in place 

Rotted bits from the  heel post

We arrived at the bottom lock at 9:00am - the first boat there.  CRT staff were already hard at work dismantling the top of the faulty lock gate removing the balance beam and the damaged section of heel post.  It turned out that the latter had rotted badly and so the failure wasnt due to careless use.  Work was not completed until about 16:30 so we decided to stay at the bottom of the flight until tomorrow morning - passage would take about 2 hours and we didnt fancy cruising til 6:30pm.  Several other boats who mostly had also attended the Northampton festival also made the same decision but others, hireboats and shared ownership boats, were due to be back at base on Saturday.

The day wasnt all wasted as we took the opportunity to visit the adjacent farm shop and buy meat, veg and sauces for another 3 days meals.

North on the Grand Union

A routine day's cruising in familiar waters - 8.5 miles with no locks.

Densie moored on the Grand Union near Weedon

It was raining when we awoke but this had stopped by the time we left our moorings at 9:45.  Then a steady cruise northwards with lunch on the move until we stopped soon after 1pm because of further rain.   The place is attractive but the pleasure is reduced as we are within earshot of both the M1 and the West Coast Main Line.

We were feeling rather cold and so we thought about lighting our stove.  However the chimney hadn't been swept for some time (years?) , what better way to spend a late summer afternoon!  Its a messy job with a large shower of flakes of what looks like dirty rust being dislodged from the flue by our special-purpose chimney brush into the grate below.  It would have been worrying if I didnt know that the thickness of rust is about 10 times the thickness of metal lost.  So the flue should be OK for a few decades yet.  Having done the job and scrubbed our hands and arms we decided not to light the fire until later.

The next obstacle to our travels is the 7 lock Buckby flight about 2 miles from our mooring.  There have been major delays here as one of the lock gates has been damaged.  C&RT are pulling boats into and out of the lock by hand and are only permitting one boat at a time to ascend the double width lock  to avoid any chance of a boat hitting the gate causing catastrophic failure.  He have now heard from C&RT that the lock will be closed tomorrow morning so that they can carry our some repairs.  We will move up to the locks first thing in the morning but it is far from clear when we will be able to use them.  Fortunately we still have more than enough time to get to Birmingham in time for a booked classical music concert in Symphony Hall on the 15th.

The festival is over - back on the Grand Union

We have had  a very enjoyable week at the Northampton Festival of Water.  The first couple of days was spent helping with the set-up with Denise working on the IWA stand.  Mike's job was to manage the boats arriving at one of the mooring sites.

Timothy West and Prunella Scales open the Northampton Festival of Water

Some of the boats attending the Festival

Fully laden working boat

 The festival was officially opened on Saturday morning by Timothy West and Prunella Scales to loud cheers from an enthusiastic crowd,  The warm weather encouraged a very large number of people to attend, both boaters and local residents who all seemed to enjoy the spectacle of about 100 boats, including a number of historic ex-working boats, and the broad range of stalls selling food, boating services, ropes, fudge, sausages etc.

Sadly Sunday was wet and Monday wetter with much reduced attendance.  However overall it was a success with the opportunities it gave for publicising the waterways,  gaining new IWA members and enabling boaters from all over the country to meet each other.

After the Festival closed on Monday we helped clear the IWA stand - a very slick operation with everything being packed onto vans in 2 hours.

On the Northampton Arm

We left Northampton at 9am today and traveled 5.5 miles and 17 locks to moor on the Grand Union Canal some 5.5 hours later.  Despite our wonderful experiences on the fen rivers we are happy to be on the canal system again.