Date - 25 Nov 06 Day - Saturday Start - Banbury End - Cropredy Last night we ate in a very nice Italian restaurant in Banbury a short walk from the canal, Luckily the weather was reasonable with only a slight drizzle, however this was to change and during the night the skys opened with heavy rain which continued until about 10 o'clock this morning. We set off about 9-30 to go down through the town and lock for about half a mile to wind and come back to moor at Castle Quay. Just as we entered the lock there was a large flash of lightning followed by an almost simultaneous crash of thunder. We moored with 15 other boats and a little before 11 o'clock we started to form a blockage across the canal in support of the fight to stop DEFRA cutting BW and EA's budget. The local press turned up as did the local MP for a photo shoot. The next 3 hours was spent collecting signatures on a petition to send to the House of Commons. At around 1-30 the management of Castle Quays decided that we should not be collecting signatures of display posters on "Their Bridge" over the canal or outside their store, so we moved over to the towpath side. The blockade finished at 2 pm with lots of horn blowing from the boats which caused meany people to leave the shops and come to see what was happening, at this point Castle Quay called the police to tell them that there was some kind of demonstration taking place on the canal, we had only been there 3 hours. After a bowl of hot soup and some crusty bread onboard we bid farewell to Guy and Sean who had come by car and set off towards Cropredy for the night. We now had Connie onboard who had arrived with Guy and was spending the night with us. The water flow along the canal just north of Banbury was like being on the Cherwell, this was due to drainage water coming into the canal. Our journey to Cropredy went well and an extra pair of hands on the locks made all the difference to our journey time so we arrived just below the lock in Cropredy about 4-30. -- Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Visit this site and help save our waterways http://www.savethewaterways.org.uk/
