Sunday 12th July; Foxton to Kilby bridge
It had all started so well … we left our quiet mooring at 8.20 in the cool, and didn’t see a soul for a long time. We wound our way around to Debdale Wharf, after which there is a stretch designated as an SSSI. Lots of interesting plants to be seen.
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| Slender reed-mace I think, smaller and thinner than the big one we call the Bulrush |
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| Bur-reed, hard to tell which one from the boat |
It’s a good thing we didn’t meet any oncoming boats, as the reeds crowded in making the channel narrow and slowing us down considerably. We had seen a couple of widebeams since the (narrow) Foxton locks, though both were moored. If we had met one on the narrow sections I’m not sure what would have happened!
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| It is bendy too |
We crossed Smeeton aqueduct and went through Saddington tunnel, still not seeing any boats on the move. We moored at Fleckney bridge, annoyingly not able to get on the armco as a smallish boat had plonked itself slap in the middle. We banged in pins then walked across the field path to Fleckney village. On the far side of the field was a group of black heifers (I know they were heifers because we met their owner later). We got the Sunday paper in the newsagent, then Dave took the paper and the dog and waited for me in the little park while I went to the Co-op for the rest of the shopping.
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| This cat was wandering about the park. Jess doesn’t quite know what to make of cats who don’t run away. |
The zebra crossing and a mini-roundabout have been painted. When I was in the Guides I was taught that it was disrespectful in the extreme to let a flag even touch the ground, let alone step on it. That of course was regarding the Union Flag, but I still chose not to use the zebra crossing here. It looked as though it had been there a while, so nothing to do with supporting England in the footy World Cup.
We reached Kibworth Top lock at the start of our descent to Leicester to find our first moving boat of the day on its way up. We were almost down the lock before a boat appeared behind us, so we waited for them at the next lock. We shared with Morning Glory Too for the rest of the day. We soon met a boat on an assessment cruise, and the man I spoke to (a seasoned boater) was getting the RYA qualification so he could crew a trip boat in Burnley. It is owned and run by a group of 10 churches as an outreach project for disadvantaged groups in the local area, some parts of which are very poor indeed. More on this in a couple of days’ time when we get to Leicester! After the first five locks we had planned to stop for the day. There had already been some shallow pounds but the long pound between locks 22 and 23 was so low that we couldn’t get close enough to the bank to even think about mooring even in the recognised spots, and we had no choice but to carry on to Newton Top lock. Our companions were deeper draughted than us and got stuck in the channel several times, taking 20 minutes longer than us to arrive.
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| No mooring in this pound! |
By then I had called CRT to report the situation. The previous week there had been a stoppage of a few hours here to let the water levels recover, and there was going to be restricted opening from Kibworth top lock to King's lock from the end of this week. That had just been brought forward to start tomorrow, but it was only now we started to realise we could have thought more carefully about our route. But there was nowhere to turn and we reasoned that as there were two boats, taking their lockful of water with them, we could go on. It was a long and very hot afternoon, lunch having been snatched on the go between locks, and multiple drinks and biscuits were needed to keep going. We finally made it to Kilby bridge at 6 pm, 9½ hours after we left Foxton, and bagged the last two mooring opportunities. I went straight up to the pub to book a table to eat, but the kitchen is closed! The farmer and a couple of his workers were in the bar and said they had had to stop combining the wheat before midday as the moisture content of the grain had got too low by then.
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| This must have been their last trailer-full - he farms most of the land between Saddington tunnel and Kilby bridge. I took the photo after we had left Fleckney. |
They were planning to get up at 3 tomorrow morning to start work while there was still a little humidity in the air and there is less dust thrown up - that's a fire risk with hot engines. The cattle we saw at Fleckney belonged to him. (As I write, on the Saturday after, there was a farmer speaking on the early morning farming programme who was having to start work at midnight to get her oilseed rape in before it dried out too much to be accepted by the mill. All her vehicles are sent out with fire extinguishers and there are water bowsers in the fields in case of fire). With no chance for a meal out, we showered, went up for a refreshing pint, and came back for scrambled eggs – too tired to eat any more, let alone cook it.
Once again, there wasn't enough signal for a blog. We have had poor connection a lot on this trip, and often the boat Wi-fi hasn't connected and the phone tethering signal is too weak to use - so the blog is now a week behind.
9 miles, 12 locks (3 miles and 7 locks more than anticipated). However our day was much shorter than a boater we spoke to who had come all the way from Watermead, the other side of Leicester - they didn't want to moor at Castle Park as they had been told there were rats. They had been on the go for 11 hours.
