Mike, helped by the alarm clock, was up at 7 and managed to set off by quarter to eight! Despite a warm forecast on the late night news yesterday, it was overcast and chilly - it remained this way all day and the promised sunshine never materialised. It did, however, warm a little later on.
It was a straight forward plain cruise to Foxton Top Lock - along the way we passed the junction for Welford which we plan to explore on the return trip - some stretches are quite narrow.
As expected, we arrived just three hours into the day but then things went awry: Christine went down to find the lock keeper and we soon discovered that he had just allowed four boats into the flight of ten locks and we would have to wait until they cleared (it seems that they no longer use the short middle pound for passing) So it was just a matter of waiting - we passed the time by having lunch, another delicious autumn soup!
Eventually, by 1:15 we were allowed into the locks - by now the number of bystanders was much reduced and, at first, we had no help! By the time we reached the bottom just under 40 minutes later they returned and several youngster - and some not-so-youngsters - enjoyed being able to open and shut the gates. The flight is actually very easy to operate.
At the bottom Christine had a small problem missing a trip boat that was moored outside the pub with very little room for boats to manoeuvre out of the lock. Of course she managed it! Another boater offered to open the swing bridge for us as we turned down the market Harborough arm.
It is just over five miles into the town centre - the first part is rural but as the town approaches it becomes more park-like with a tree-lined row of gardens running down to the canal bank from the houses.
In the basin Mike began the process of using the services, including filling the water tank whilst Christine investigated mooring options - the top path mooring just outside the basis was very overgrown and probably masking both satellite and mobile communications. She discovered that it was £6 a night but the Site manager was not returning until tomorrow afternoon. So, we tied up for the night at the most convenient mooring and shut up the boat ready to walk into town. Just as we were leaving the Manager returned and we sorted out our mooring fee for the night, leaving us to decide later whether we stay one or two nights. At least we knew that we were moored in an appropriate place and that we would not be rudely awoken to be told to move on!
It is about 15 minutes walk down to the shops - the town centre is very pleasant and has a wide range of both local, independent shops as well as many national names. The smaller food shops were either closing or about to do so but a good Sainsburys supplied most of what we needed. The only problem then was to haul it all back up the hill to the marina!
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