Monday 5th June; Foxton locks to Market Harborough and back a bit
Yet another cold and grey morning. What happened to yesterday's sunshine? I'm posting this on the following Saturday, a proper scorcher!
We arrived at the top of the locks just before 9, early for us to be on the move, but not early enough! There was one boat waiting to go down, but sadly there were several at the bottom already coming up. Two arrived, and the boat in front went down to wait at the passing place for the next batch coming up. We then had to wait for these boats to make at to the top, so it was after 10 before we could finally begin.
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| Top lock |
We too would be waiting at the half-way point for another few boats. The lockies have a slick system for getting downhill boats quickly into the layby area, using a hook to retieve the centre line and pulling the boat in.
After the wait, we were on the move again. We were immediately cheered by the arrival of
two groups of primary school children, all clutching their clipboards and
chattering excitedly. After the usual
cries of ‘Oh, look at the doggy!’ one of the teachers asked if some of the
children could help – of course they could, 3 at a time with an adult between
them and the water. Great fun! But of
course, you can’t really take photos of little ones these days, so we had to make do with this one taken from the lock below – and
you can’t see them at all, in spite of their bright red sweatshirts, as by now
they were all sitting down. I hope they were warm enough.
The lockies took over at the last lock, and I went round to open the swing bridge.
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| COming round into the Market Harborough Arm |
We stopped briefly on the swing bridge mooring while I nipped across with a bagful of recycling, and bought a couple of flapjack bars from the little shop by the bottom lock, then we cruised on towards Market Harborough eating them. We were hungry, and we didn’t want to stop for lunch before we reached the basin. The second swing bridge, which carries a road, is known to be difficult, but there was a broken-down hire boat on the bridge moorings and the guy really wanted to help. At least I got to feel how heavy the gate is (very). At one point an interesting little fellow paid us a visit.
We had heard that the towpath moorings at the basin were not available as work was being done, but weren’t prepared to meet this tug and immense pan just round a bend. At least we were past those moored boats before he appeared.
We moored on one of the finger pontoons in the basin just before 2. We weren’t staying overnight, so there would be no charge, but we were asked to be gone by 4 if we could as the day boats would all be returning. I quickly took Meg off for a wee before we got the bags and set off for the shops. Mooring is not good for dogs here when you can’t access the towpath. We slogged our way back up the hill laden with purchases (2 rucksacks, 3 bags and a trolley), and got going again as soon as the fridge stuff was put away. We had arrived at the basin while the workmen were still at lunch. Now they were hard at work!
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| They used the digger bucket to move the pan out of the way for us to pass |
The towpath upgrade works are carrying on until September – what a time to do it. At least the visitor moorings should be completed before the school holidays. It must have been a bit tricky last week, which was half-term.
We had wondered about mooring fairly close to the town but the moorings were either taken, not very nice for the dog, or rather too close to a road. The canal winds around and is quite river-like in places where the towpath can’t be seen.
We pulled in on the stretch between bridges 9
and 8, still with some road noise but it's not too bad. Anyway it was still cold and we wanted to stop
8 miles, 10 locks (Foxton), 2 swing bridges
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