Macc was up and about early this morning, so we were too. It was no bad thing as we had the Watford Locks ahead of us, which can be a bottleneck with long queues, so we were departing our mooring at 8.15, which is early for us these days. Much of this first part of the Leicester Line is quite river-like and tree-lined.
The Asian restaurant by Bridge 6 has really upgraded its dining pods. They are much more substantial than the original iteration.
We got to Watford Locks at 9, and there was one boat just going in to the bottom lock. I went and checked in with the lock keeper, who said we could follow them up — so there was no queue and no wait. The water point at the bottom is out of action at the moment because of blue tits nesting.
Once the boat ahead was up the lock I turned it for us and we started our ascent.
A lockie got the second lock ready for us, and then also the bottom lock of the staircase. Lock 2 and the staircase are not in a straight line, and Adrian did a great job of getting from one to the other. We’ve seen people make a right hash of the turn.
A lock keeper was helping the boat ahead, but left us to it, probably because I assured him we’d done the staircase many times before. All is well if you lift the red paddle first, then the white one.
At the top of the staircase, the single top lock was also ready and waiting for us. All seven locks took about 40 minutes. That completed the locks for the journey between Droitwich and Crick — 128 of them; that means we’ve done more locks in the past 16 days than in the previous five months! We first rose nearly 112 metres, then went down 84, then back up 72 — meaning we’re almost exactly 100m higher than in Droitwich.
The water tank was down to a third full so we pulled onto the water point above the top lock. We were actually there for longer than it had taken to get up the locks, even though it was a reasonably fast tap. In the book swap they had a big pile of magazines, including quite a few copies of Canal Boat that had me on the front cover doing a boat test, some of which dated back to 2011! Once the tank was full we headed off under the M1.
We moored in a spot we’ve used before just after Bridge 9. There’s a field of sheep opposite, but the M1 is noisier than we remember, probably because the wind is blowing the sound this way today. While it’s been quite breezy it hasn’t rained, which is a surprise. Macc has been out for a couple of off-lead walks along the towpath and has really enjoyed himself. I’ve edited interviews for a future podcast, and Adrian has been working on a project for the charity he’s a trustee of.
3 miles, 7 locks. (63 miles, 128 locks)