Before long we neared Braunstone with its distinctive church spire a landmark for several miles. After arriving at Braunston Turn we crawled through the busy, narrow stretch to the flight of locks. It was good, whilst going through the flight, to be able to show a couple, who were interested and thinking of a canal holiday, what was involved in operating the locks.
At the tunnel entrance we could see the land slip - not large but it had deposited enough into the canal to reduce the entrance to a single boat width.
After a lunch stop we tackled the Long Buckby flight, accompanied in the locks by a full length boat where a couple were being shown how to work father's boat before the grandparents went off with the three grandchildren for a couple of day's break! It took an exceptional length of time to work nthe flight, partly because of the poor maintenance on many of nthe gates but also because most of the boats coming up were rather slow in working through!
After the locks came the long level pound to Stoke Bruerne. There were large quantities of moored boats which are quite oppressive. British Waterways really must address this as a long term policy issue and aim to take all long term mooring off the canal. At Heyford a large new marina was under construction - without water it was possible to see what is normally out of view.
After the rain of so many days, it is gooid to be able to report that today was a bright, sunny and warm day - almost like summer!
