Sunday 17 April 2016

Back to Lowsonford

Saturday 16th April 2016

Wootton Wawen to Lowsonford
4 miles 8 locks

There are few things more disheartening than every time you wake up in the night all you can hear is rain - yet again!  Worse still when we went out in the morning the dogs looked as though they had a bad case of dandruff - yes it was snowing!!!  Well only a few flakes, but snow all the same,

As we are retracing our steps on this journey there is not a lot to say!  I do, however, keep finding a 'ghost ship' with the helmsman nowhere to be seen.  I think it is the fire that keeps calling for attention.

We only met one boat today and that was at the fifth lock - the others had all been full or half full, so it was great to find the last three empty.  I had walked ahead as the previous lock filled up.  I was going to open the paddle to empty the lock ready for us, however I found a boat heading towards the lock, so I opened it for them.  I then went to send hand signals to Chris to tell him to leave the gate open, so all he had to do was open the gate and drop the paddles.  He waited in the lock until the gates opened to let the other boat out.  He assumed they would meet around the mid point.  Despite going very slowly he arrived before they had even exited the lock!  What had they been doing you might wonder?  They piled everyone plus bike back on board despite the next lock being in view!!

At this point they thought about off loading someone to do the next lock

And about here they made it!  It would have been much quicker to walk!!

At Lowsonford we stopped to fill the water tank and get rid of some rubbish and we came across a group of Duke of Edinburgh adventurers.  It looks as though these days they have to have adult escorts - not something that was the case when I and then later our daughter did DofE.  It is always good to see youngsters out enjoying the countryside.

Having made use of the hose to sluice Monty down (he was in a disgusting state) we went under the bridge and up the last lock and we then moored up for the night opposite the Fleur de Lys Pub.

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