Bulbourne

Today's Canal - Grand Union

After the overnight storms we awoke to milder weather with the rain just fading away and the wind abating back down to the levels of yesterday. The day continued in similar style with some very bright sunny spells and some heavy but short showers. We did not, however, get as wet as yesterday afternoon.

We put off leaving until 10 am - Christine had some cleaning to do and Mike some urgent emails. Steering remained as much in need of attention but it was by no means as difficult as the forecast had suggested and certainly was not dangerous.

We faced a steady succession of locks and, sadly, a boat that passed us before we set off left all the top gates open which added considerably to the time to operate each lock.

Just before Horton Lock we passed some new bank repairs. Whilst we are normally very appreciative of the skill which CRT staff apply in keeping the waterways open, this piece of work did look to us as one of the untidiest and potentially least successful we have seen for some time. After this lock we paused to fill our tank at the water point.

Ivinghoe Beacon

 When the sun was out the views were excellent, with the rapidly turning leaves offering a wonderful range of colours. Ivinghoe Beacon - minus the snow which was still lying when we came this way at the start of the season.

At the first two of the Marsworth Flight (these two are some distance before the junction) not only were both top gates left open at each lock but also all the top paddles. As a result, with quite leaky bottom gates, the short pound between them was at least 600mm down and we only just made it over the bottom cill of the upper lock.

Start of Aylesbury Arm

 A quick stop at the sani station at the junction and we were passing the Aylesbury Arm. It is still closed with the repair not expected to be completed for a few more weeks. Amusingly, the stoppage notices today included one that reported that a tree had blown down and was making navigation impassable! In any event, we did not have time - yet again - to explore this arm. We did go down a very long time ago but not since we bought Take Five.

It was now just after 2:40 and we had to summon our reserves of energy to tackle the remaining seven locks. Our normal rate should see us at the top before sunset just so long as the locks remain empty and ready for us!

Part way up we met the only boat on the move in the other direction (apart from two day boats at Marsworth that had tied up and were expecting to get back to Pitstone before dark!)

We were interested to see how full the reservoirs would be - we missed taking a look at the lower one but the upper reservoir seemed to be fuller than we might expect at the start of the season, not after a long summer and before the winter re-filling.

In fact these locks passed much more smoothly and we were out of the top lock just two minutes after four o'clock. There was room at the start of the popular visitor moorings but most of the stretch back from the bridge was occupied. This can be a popular site for winter moorers, authorised or not!

We now await further news of Alice's arrival but that is dependent on how long Ellie takes ta the orthodontist - hopefully her braces can be removed this time! Alice is staying on board until the end of this trip at the weekend.

8.6 miles - 16 locks