Hatton

Tomorrow Jess returns home and so our target today was to moor as close to Leamington Spa Railway Station as possible. All that lay in our way was Hatton 21 - an (in)famous flight of broad locks.

Bridge 60

Mike set off earlier that most days as we had a good hour's run to the top lock - it was a bright sunny day and was warm enough in the middle of the day, at least when working locks! Shrewley Tunnel, with its unusual extra tunnel for horses, told us that we were near the Hatton Flight.

Shrewley Tunnel

At the top lock we missed the rubbish and elsan point, thinking that the sign on the building below the lock indicated it. However, as soon as we had emptied the lock we realised that the point was indeed (as Nicholson's indicated) above the top lock! Since the building below turned out to be a cafe doing a good breakfast trade we thought it bad form to stop there to bring out our disposals! The result was that Mike had to haul the elsan up the lock ladder. Ahh!

Hatton Top Lock

By the time we had completed that task and readied ourselves in the second lock we noticed that another boat had arrived at the top so we waited for them to come down - there is a strong presumption in favour of lock sharing wherever possible in order to conserve water. However, and we were not sure if this was because of back pumping, the flight was running strongly over the weirs or gates all the way down. The long pound had, as reported, been about 300mm down on normal level, so a bit of a puzzle.

Maintenance Yard at Lock 43

It was good to be able to share and the crew of the other boat were friendly but working two boats through is almost as much effort as one (since it is better to open both gates) but slower as two boats take longer to enter or exit the locks unless breasted up - which was a bit beyond us with an unknown accompanying boat (and a bit much for them as well, no doubt!)

Dragonfly Sculpture



The flight originally had both broad and narrow locks but the latter no longer exist although many have been converted into overflow weirs.

It was with some relief that we were able to moor below the flight to have a much deserved lunch break - one a bit longer than usual!

Lock 27 - one to go!

Cape of Good Hope Pub

Off again and we had just the two Cape Locks to work through before we were on the Leamington Spa level.

Cape Bottom Lock

Another of our targets was the large Tesco store at Emscote Road Bridge and we tied up and set off with our bags and a long shopping list, top of which was more milk. Alas, when we arrived we discovered that it was closed for refurbishment and will re-open next Monday - a bit too long for us to wait! We did find a local shop for milk and a paper as well as a tin of tuna for the evening meal, just in case nothing else turns up!

A little further and we crossed Avon Aqueduct and another which spans a railway line.


 A little further on we saw a boat unloading a trolleyful of groceries and then saw that there were mooring rings alongside a Lidl store. Christine went off and returned with about half of her list - Jess was pleased to be very helpful in loading the goods onto the boat.

Just a short distance and we reached Bridge 41 which is almost as close to a railway station as possible and also a good set of mooring rings with sufficient space for us to moor.

Mike went off to buy tickets for tomorrow and also returned with an extra treat for the evening meal (a container of Smarties ice cream!) as well as a couple of other items that Lidl did not stock - if he had thought of taking the list he might have found even more!

8.6 miles - 23 locks