Hillmorton to Braunston

Saturday 4th August

First of all, we need to mention the 'elephant in the room' which we forgot yesterday. That would be the extensive construction work which is going on around Hillmorton, diggers and lorries seemingly removing a hill and depositing it elsewhere. The VLKs at the locks told us that it was all preparatory work for a new village on the site of the old radio masts which had been a feature of the landscape for so long.

 After a night which was cooler than we expected, we got away in good time - about 8.30. We made really quick progress through the three Hillmorton locks as there were boats coming down towards us each time. 

Approaching Braunston

We moored at the visitor moorings at Braunston at 11.15 and walked up into the village. We checked the times of the church services for tomorrow and continued to the shop to buy sugar (the container on the boat which I thought had sugar in it, turned out to be coffee) and fly spray (we had rather a lot of insect life in the boat yesterday evening). We also treated ourselves to a pork pie for lunch from the excellent butcher's.




Following lunch back at the boat, we decided we would do the locks and moor at the top - this would mean a rather longer walk to church, but as the service isn't until 11.15, doing the locks today would considerable shorten what we are due to do tomorrow.

We were able to pair up with another boat, The Pat Mobile (which by some coincidence has a registration number exactly 10,000 more than Chyandour), to go up the locks, but as he was on his own, we still had to work quite hard!. However we met boats coming down at each lock so that was a great help. We were delayed a little coming out of lock 4, as lock 5 was set ready for the boats coming out of lock 6. As we were not in a hurry ( and neither was The Pat Mobile) we waited for them rather than turn the lock (doing our bit for water conservation!). We reached the top at 3.45 and moored up and put the kettle on!

A little later, we decided to explore the old horse path over the top of the tunnel. It wasn't much of an exploration as the path is very obvious but it was a pleasant walk.

The weather today was hot and sunny, though again there was slight breeze helping to make conditions more bearable.