Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Cosgrove to Stoke Bruerne (cruise retrospective)

It was warmer today. It must have been. I only wore five layers of clothing. But the sun was out, the sky was blue, and all was well in our world. Up the shallow Cosgrove Lock, and a stop above for services while Grace nipped into a nearby shop for bread and milk.
Today's journey was very rural. The canal is wide and river-like. There were few boats on the move. Tiny ducklings and coot chicks peeped around their paddling parents. Little lambs and their dams white-dotted the fields, and the fresh, sweet smell of rape filled the air. It was perfect. Even when I had to add that sixth layer!

Thrupp Wharf, Yardley Gobion, Grafton Regis - getting the Regis bit from Henry VIII who owned a manor house there. Six miles of peaceful countryside canal. That's about two hours, remember!

Not knowing what delays we might encounter as we climbed the five locks into Stoke Bruerne, we had lunch at the visitor moorings below the bottom lock. One of the delays might well have been NB Primrose, whom we knew to be ahead of us. We'd passed Foxglove not long before, but they had turned, and were now on their way back to the Wyverne base. But there they were, the Americans, busying themselves with filling their water tank and discarding rubbish at the service point close to the lock. They weren't going to slow our ascent, then. Up we went!

A vollie we met three locks up told Grace that the Primrose crew had seen the flight of locks, asked a lot of questions about it, then decided it was too much work for them. So they'd winded and were ready to follow Foxglove back to Leighton Buzzard. It was a shame, we thought. If we'd been there at the time, they could have come up with us. It would have been much easier for them that way.

Dense, dark blue clouds started to threaten us as we did the locks, and it started to rain as we moored below the second lock down. Excellent timing. And a lovely place to moor for the night. We were only a short walk from The Navigation Inn, and the rain had stopped in time for us to go and enjoy a good meal there later. 




Three photos from our windows




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