Gayton to Northampton

Tuesday 7th August

The weather today was due to be much as it has been before, so knowing we had 17 locks to do today, we decided to make an earlier start in the hope of doing at least most of them before it got too hot. 

We were on our way by 7.45 and at the top of the Rothersthorpe flight at 8.00.  Although the first 5 locks were empty and had to be filled, they fill and empty quickly so we made good progress. Lock 6 was full (always seems odd when this happens in the middle of a flight), then 7,8 and 9 were empty. The pounds in this section were much lower than they had been higher up. Lock 10 was another full one and there we met a lady who had walked up from Lock 12 where her husband was apparently worried about low levels in the pound he was about to enter with their cruiser. We agreed that we would go down Lock 10, turn Lock 11 in our favour and then go down it, so that he would get two lots of water in his pound.  This was all accomplished and we both carried on our way.

As there was no-one else around coming up or down, we stopped for coffee in Lock 13 surveying the countryside.

     

Many of these locks have mosaics embedded in the grass; these were made by local schoolchildren and show canal life and the animals and trees they might see around. I think the letters might spell Northampton, but with the letters not (as Eric Morecombe might say) necessarily in the right order.

The canal below Lock 13 is much more river-like; it is very clear and you can see lots of small fish swimming amongst the weed. There were also many dragonflies (damselflies?) around.

The other thing there was plenty of was weed – cut and lying on the surface, gathering itself around the front of the boat, behind lock gates and potentially round propellers. Someone had fished a large heap of it out by one lock, but had rather unhelpfully dumped it right by a ground paddle, so I had to stand on this smelly, soggy heap to work the paddle.

We did meet two other narrowboats on this lower section, passing each slowly and carefully as the undergrowth encroaches from both sides onto the channel.

We arrived in Northampton at 12.30 having done all 17 locks – by this time we were ready for lunch, as also, it would appear, were the local residents. 

After a while we wandered along to the very convenient Morrisons to do some shopping, back to the boat for a lazy hour or two then back to Morrisons for toasted teacakes.

Over the last couple of days we’ve seen some lovely cloud formations - I know the one on the left as mare’s tails, but I don’t know what the other one is.