On the move

Today's Canal - Oxford

With today's forecast being quite reasonable, and tomorrow's rather uncertain, we opted to make a move today. After filling up with water and disposing of rubbish we were ready to untie.

A stroke of luck - Black Swan (the on-site engineers) were moving a boat out of our basin to their dry dock and so had already opened the swing bridge between the two. They also offered to close up after we had passed through.

As we made our way to the marina entrance the sun shone even though a breeze had picked up a little. We turned right to head towards  Banbury,

After a short, level cruise we arrived at our first real test - Cropredy Lock. With Christine not able to steer or work the lock, it was time for Mike to brush up his single-handing skills. At least these are narrow locks so not as difficult to control the boat in the lock as with wide ones.

All went well - obviously it took a bit longer than usual as Mike had to walk back to the boat to bring it into the lock, Normally this would be the role of the steerer once the lock was made ready. This lock also has the advantage of a bridge immediately below the lock which means that the boat can hover here whilst the gates are closed behind it on the way out. We also had help from two very small children, keen to join in the experience. Christine was able operate the throttle so that Mike did not have to bow haul the boat out.

Just after the road bridge in Cropredy, the fuel boat Dusty (now part of the Jules Fuels 'empire') was tied up at the wharf to take on a fresh load of solid fuel for its next deliveries. This boat has been a well-known supplier along this canal for many years, with several different people in charge.

Next came Slat Mill Lock where we repeated the process, except that with no bridge below, we had to tie onto the lock landing bollards whilst Mike went back to close up the bottom gates after we had passed through.

Our last lock of the morning was Little Bourton Lock where the former lock cottage has been under restoration for almost a couple of decades in our time of passing this way. Newly planted flower troughs at the front suggest that someone is still taking an interest, but it does look far from habitable yet.

There are few good moorings between here and the centre of Banbury so we opted to pull in a couple of boat lengths beyond the lower lock landing at the last of the Armco for some time. The motorway is audibly close (some degree of traffic noise is inevitable until after Banbury. The main downside is that our mobile signals are slow and probably not able to support streaming tonight. 

After lunch we decided to quit whilst ahead (as it were) and stay put for the rest of the day. At least we have proved that we can still make progress whilst Christine's recuperation continues. Our distance cruised was not great - two and a half hours - but quite a bit was slow with moored boats and at Slat Mill we had to wait whilst a boat waiting ahead, worked down. In the circumstances we felt quite satisfied with progress! We even remembered to take a few photos.

2.7 Miles - 3 Locks