Date - 28 6 09 Day - Sunday Start -0945 Napton Bottom Lock End -1800 Blow Fosse top lock
Well as you can see from the heading we have made up our minds what we are doing. We left our moorings in the bottom pound of the Napton flight on the South Oxford canal at 9 45 this morning. There were a steady stream of boats coming towards us as we headed towards Wigrams Turn and of course we met one on a tight bend with a boat moored on the outside, just to make it harder for everyone. We turned left at Wigrams . north on the Grand Union with it's wide locks arriving at Calcutt lock just as 2 boats were going down, but again boats were coming towards us and by the time the lock was ready for us, the boat moored behind us last night had caught us up so we went down together, unfortunately they moor in Calcutt Marina so after just 3 locks we were on our own again. We were hoping that there would be someone to share the Stockton flight with and as I looked back a saw a boat come out of Ventner Farm Marina but he pulled over just before the top of the flight. We arrived at the locks just at lunch time and two boats were coming out so we went into the lock and waited 10 minutes just to make sure that the boat behind had stopped and then pushed on alone. At the second lock we could see that a boat coming up, still below the bridge had drawn the bottom paddles on the next 4 locks, so we had no choice but to sit and wait for them to come up. We stopped at Shop Lock to buy ice creams from WFB but unfortunately the were closed so we made our way down the The Two Boats for a pint of bitter and a sit in the shade. After about three quarters of an hour we set off again and had a steady run down alone to below Fosse Top Lock tying up a little after 6 pm. You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian
