Ladder Bridge

Canals Today - Grand Union and Oxford

The day started bright, even though it had rained hard shortly before we awoke. The sky gradually clouded over and, as forecast, rain arrived around 2 o'clock. Surprisingly, however, by late afternoon sun returned and it was a beautiful evening.

We still needed to catch up on our schedule so we set off in good time. The next few locks are stretched out but then comes the short Bascote flight, including a two-lock staircase only to be followed by the long rise up through Stockton.

Since we came this way not so long ago, as well as fairly frequently in the past few years, Mike was uninspired with the camera - once the weather turned wet and the results would inevitably be mediocre!

At the first Long Itchington Lock, Christine popped to a nearby shop for a paper - fortunately there was just one left! We have been to this shop before - seems to be rather different part of the village from where we visited the church, coming at it from the other side.

As we arrived at Stockton Bottom Lock, a boat was just leaving to go to the next - Christine quickly nipped up and suggested that we shared. This was their first full day of boating but they were learning quickly! This helped us through quite quickly - although a boat coming down became quite agitated when they were asked not to draw our water from a lock in the middle of the flight. Another boat had just come down and emptied it. Just as we were completing the top lock, Mike tripped over he knows not what as he was stepping onto the boat roof and ended up flat on his face. Fortunately he does not seem to have done too much damage and at least he did not end up in the water!

After Stockton there is a longer level pound before the three locks at Calcutt. We came up the first two locks with another boat that arrived as we were waiting our turn after a boat down but then we wanted to call at the wharf for gas and fuel which we duly completed.

After this was when the rain really started! This photo of Napton Windmill is marked by rain not hazy sunshine!

Buffalo much closer this time

After a brief stop at the sani station below Napton Locks, we started up, helped by a couple of friendly volunteer lock keepers. The one at the second lock was having his work cut out as there was a long queue of boats wanting to come down - tomorrow is turn around day at several nearby hire bases. They were in danger of creating grid lock by pressing on down into the short pounds, making it almost impossible at times for boats to go up. The main delay is at Lock 10 in the middle of the flight. It received attention earlier in the year when it was closed for several days when one of the bottom abutments collapsed, but less well known is that only one bottom paddle is working. This means that this lock is very much slower to empty than those above.

Look - blue sky!

We had not noticed before, but at the top lock there is a business restoring old saloon cars.

With such a lovely evening, we decided to carry on until we caught up with our planned stop near Ladder Bridge, hoping that this late in the day there will still be space at a popular mooring spot. Christine steered whilst Mike prepared the evening meal and started on the blog.

Suddenly, Christine exclaimed, "Look, there's Seyella" - a fellow blogger. See http://www.seyellas-journey.blogspot.co.uk.  We managed to pull in and had a brief chat with Geoff. One of the coincidences is that Christine had discovered a little while back that Geoff started as a pupil at the school where she taught at the late Sixties not far from where we then lived in Loughborough. They only just failed to overlap!

We continued for another half hour and did indeed reach our target and there was space, although we stopped a 100m or so before the main moorings. The low sun was now in our eyes (not complaining, please understand) but it did look as if there were a number of boats moored ahead and we found a good piece of piling to moor against with a clear view for the TV!

16.8 miles - 28 locks