Downtown to Norton Junction….

We had, what for us is an early start yesterday morning, leaving our mooring at Downtown Hill at nine o’clock.  The weather forecast had changed so the weather was not too bad, cloudy but dry,  with rain expected later in the day.  We had an uneventful morning, not much to photograph on this stretch – maybe if the sun had been shining it might have looked better.  The only thing of interest was this boat, ‘moored’ in the middle of a field as we approached Crick.

Exiting Crick Tunnel – it was FREEZING inside!!

We briefly considered mooring opposite Crick Marina and calling it a day, but it was only just past midday, so we decided to continue on and get down Watford Locks and moor somewhere between there and Norton Junction.  It was 1 o’clock when we arrived at Watford, to see a boat just going into the top lock.  We thought we’d been lucky and would be next in the queue, but it was not to be!  When I booked in with the lockie, he was just telling a BW workboat moored at the bottom that he’d be next!  Drat!!!  We tied up and I put the kettle on.  We started down the locks just before 2 o’clock, and waited in the first pound for two more boats to come up before we continued down.  We exited the locks at just a few minutes to three, with at least another boat coming down behind.  There had been a knock-on effect from Braunston Locks earlier in the day as there had been a problem and they hadn’t opened until 11 o’clock.  There were 3 boats already in the bottom 2 pounds waiting to go up – one of which I suspect had sneaked through as I’d heard the lockie telling him at 2.20 that he was too late and would have to wait until the morning!  Unfortunately we didn’t gat to hear the outcome as we’d long gone by the time the lockie came back down the locks.

Waiting at the top

On the move again

Entering the last lock of the day – the blue boat in the pound is the one who ‘sneaked’ up.

By this time the rain had started and we had to resort to wet-weather gear.  We started looking for a decent mooring spot straight away, but there just wasn’t anywhere, so we carried on to Norton Junction, quite expecting it to be full, but there were several spaces, and as we approached we saw fellow bloggers nb Derwent 6 were also there.  We had a very quick chat, but as it was pouring with rain we didn’t linger – we promised a chat later when it had stopped raining, but it hasn’t yet so we still haven’t had a proper catch up.

Moored at Norton Junction, nose to nose with Derwent 6

 

12.9 miles and 7 locks