Date - 28 Dec Day - Sunday Start - 10 am End - 4 PM Day 2
We woke to a sunny but cool morning, The boat had a layer of ice on the roof but there was no ice on the canal. We pushed off at 10 AM heading towards Braunston. BW have really done bridge 100 proud, not only have they printed 100 on a laminated piece of A4 paper, they have then mounted them on 6 foot long round posts and driven one in each side of the bridge on the off side. NB Lucy now has a couple of notices on the side telling people that it is a restoration project and please keep off, All the top cloths have gone, I don't know if these were removed by the new owner or if their removal prompted the notices. Just through Braunston Turn we saw NB Hadar moored up, chimneys smoking well. A couple of blasts on the horn soon brought Jo and Keith out to say hello and exchange Christmas and New Year greetings. We carried on to Braunston Bottom Lock where a boat had just gone up before us. As Diana turned the lock I got talking to Phil at Bottom Lock chandlery who has built a small Venetian Gondola that now stand beside his workshop. As we locked up John P came along for a chat and then returned to his boat, only to reappear with bike and windlass to help us up the flight. This did actually slow us down a bit as we had to stop at The Admiral Nelson for a swift one, as they were doing Sunday lunch we also tried the Gloucester Old Spot roast pork. Moored outside the Nelson was NB Debdale but there was no one onboard, so I expect they were in the Nelson as well. After a good Sunday Lunch and admiring some of the landlords art work, photographs on canvas. We continued our journey up the Braunston flight, while we had been eating a couple of boats came down so now the locks were with us and John helped us right to the top. Braunston tunnel was very clear and we could see from end to end and it was quite a bit warmer in there. We turned left onto the Leicester Arm and a short way along we came to the Narrowboat trusts pair of boats, Brighton and Nuneaton moored breasted up opposite 3 BW boats moored , breasted up on the offside bank, I'm glad it was still light, if it had been 5 PM we probably wouldn't have seen the BW flats. We passed a few boats mooring up for the day and continued on just past Weltonfield Marina where we had planned to moor. Just as we were mooring Peter Thompson on Colonel followed by NB Bream, not sure if it was Steve came the other way and passed very slowly so as not to drag us back into the middle of the cut as we waited to step ashore. For our latest location http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian <[email protected]> Visit my Web site at http://www.harnser.info
