Date - 18 03 10 Day - Thursday Start - Braunston 0930 End - Crick 1530 9 am and I am off out with the dog walking with Brian from RN and his dog Ghost, Diana is off to the village to get a few odds and ends with plans to meet at Butchers Bridge. 9 30 and I am off, hardly any boats moored in the village and several people enjoying breakfast in the Gongoozlers Rest now under new management. Just past the marina entrance I met the freshly stretched Caxton coming towards me. I hovered at Butchers Bridge as I could see Diana coming down the path. The boat moored just through the bridges was untying so I was hopeful of someone to share the locks with. Wrong, it was Matilda Rose and they were waiting for me to pass before they reversed back to the water point, so we did the flight alone. Needless to say all the locks were against us until the second from the top where we met two boats, There was a short delay at the top lock as the BW contractors were loading a pair of gas cylinders onto a short tug to take them to the tunnel mouth. There is still a lot of work ongoing here and speaking to the chap supervising the moving of the cutting equipment they will still be here for another 6 weeks or so. They are relaying the towing path between the top lock and the tunnel, installing culverts and drains in an attempt to cure the muddy mess that I have always known. On the off side they are installing the flexible fabric piling but instead of using the normal wooden stakes they are using scaffold poles driving them in with a pile driver. At the tunnel mouth there is still bit of a temporary dam where the ground water is being drained into the canal but they have built a brick sluice to allow this to happen when work is complete. We met one boat in the tunnel and this was the only boat we saw on the move until we arrived at Crick. On the Watford flight BW are hard at work painting the lock gates and as it was lunch time when we arrived I had to walk right to the top of the flight to find them before starting our climb, needless to say, yet again all the locks were against us. We stopped outside Edwards to fill with water and then moved on to moor for the night opposite the two marina entrances. There is a sign that says its winter moorings until the end of the month all the way along this stretch controlled by Crick Marina, so I am not sure if we should be here or not, I am just waiting for a boat to come along and the steerer to shout "O you are on my mooring" if he does we will move, if not we will just stay until the morning.
You will find our latest position and all our past travels on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/ -- Brian
