Today's cruise can probably be summarised by 'leaves and moored boats' with the sub text of grey and damp. Although it was quite bright when we set off, within the hour grey clouds had arrive and a wet drizzle came along with them. Although we had some dry patches, most of the day remained much as this.
We only had two locks today - Cosgrove after almost twp hours cruising and then Fenny towards the end of the day. In between were long level pounds. The leaves have continued to fall off the trees and we found them especially annoying today - perhaps because we noticed it even more with the uninterrupted cruising times.
But Milton Keynes has become even more a place for continuous in-line casual mooring. No doubt this is a function of employment opportunities in MK, coupled with rising house prices, but many of the huge number of boats did look as if they were permanently occupied and almost none of them on long term moorings, let alone ones with residential permission. This must be one of the more significant enforcement hot spots outside London and the western end of the Kennet and Avon. No doubt we shall see more as we continue southwards. To our surprise we have not seen any Winter Mooring signs despite the indications from CRT that they would be out by now. They are supposed to commence on 1st November.
Just before Cosgrove we passed some bank repair works - here now back filling after finishing the actual piles themselves. Rather than dredgings they were using aggregate brought in specially for the task.
We shared Cosgrove Lock with a boat just ahead who had already filled it. It was a rather slow boat and we were grateful that he let us pass quite soon after leaving the lock.
We also noticed the continued growth in the number of wide beam boats in the Milton Keynes area - we even met several on the move.
At Wolverton we dropped Andrew off to catch a train from the nearby station back to Birmingham to collect his car. We will rendezvous with him later when we know where we are likely to moor for the night.
The observant will have noticed the distinctive lack of photos in this blog. Not only was the weather unkind to the camera but also this stretch is familiar and all rather the same. Even if it had been bright and sunny, most of our library photos are now quite good so finding something different is a challenge!
However, here are a couple to give some indication of the wonderful autumnal colours - the railway bridge is a former branch from Wolverton through to Newport Pagnell (which saw off the short canal that pre-existed it). The line is long since closed and is now a popular cycle and foot path.
At Giffard park we stopped to use the services and, with an extremely slow tap, we were able to have our lunch whilst waiting. In fact the tap was so slow that the tank was still not full by the time we were ready to leave.
We hoped for a little leg stretch at Fenny Lock but even that we largely denied as a couple of chaps were there waiting for a boat to arrive so they let us down and opened the swing bridge for us.
By now the light was failing even quicker that the past few days but we did manage to make our first provisional mooring and meeting point. Christine called Andrew who was by now not far away and within minutes he had arrived and began to load up his belongings into the car. He did, however, stay for the evening meal!
18.8 Miles - 2 Locks
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