Took many pictures of boats, and bought some bits and pieces for the boat, including an aquadrive as there was lots of shaking from the drive. Weather was mostly good, but we did have a big thunder storm.

25/5/03 Sunday

Wet, and drizzly was a good description for the morning. We had decided to do the ring – the original intention was to go back the way we came, but Dad was fed up of the big locks. This meant we had to turn around, and I didn’t fancy reversing 1 mile down the canal with boats moored along one side. We went back up the canal, but a really slow boat had go in front of us. We didn’t even make 2mph, and eventually he let us past near Yelvertoft quoting engine problems – why didn’t he let us past before! We found a place somewhere near Winwick Manor farm to turn, and we headed back. My sister, Julie, was planning a trip to the Lake District, and had just bought a digital camera. She wanted to buy a way of charging the batteries up, and wanted my opinion. Unfortunately driving a narrowboat in driving rain, whilst on the phone is not good when you need to maneuver. On reaching Yelvertoft bridge another boat came the other way. There was nowhere nice to stop on my side of the bridge, and since I had stopped on the other side of the bridge on the way up I knew it wasn’t a problem for them. I continued, and so did they. OK, I thought, these bridges are 14” wide, so we should be able to pass in the hole. I’m not sure the other bloke new this… so he kept coming down the middle. A lot of engine revs stopped a big bump, but since I was most of the way through the bridge, he was definitely in the wrong. No apology from him mind. About 2 hours later, we were back where we started, and went around the rally site a second time.

18:10 Set off again, this time in the right direction. I was hoping we would make Watford before they closed, but it’s much further than it looks on the map. It was a beautiful evening though, and the sun was just glazing the sides of the hills.

19:17 We reached the locks, but they were closed (at 1900 I think). A quick back up for about 1/2mile to get away from the M1 finished the day.

Got up, and very quickly moved the boat back to the locks to get our rightful place.

8:30 Started our decent, no problems, but caught up with another (very) slow boat at the bottom.

09:51 Reached the junction with the Grand Union at Buckby. Slow lazy smoke out of the top of an exhaust meant we behind a slow chugger again, down some of the widest, and deepest canal sections we had been on. Braunston tunnel was the first I had steered through, and was interesting when passing other boats. The best way was to virtually stop, but you could not tell how far away the boat was, so some careful timing needed. For some reason I could not steer a straight line in the tunnel, I kept telling Dad that it was because the tunnel was not straight – he wouldn’t believe me.

~11:00 Top Lock at Braunston, and a long line of boats awaited us. We got paired up with a group of young adults out for a jolly on one of their fathers’ boat. They had walky talkies with them, but all you could hear was muffled noises!!

12:18 Bottom Lock at Braunston, and our temporary traveling companions stopped at the lock. Somehow there was an even bigger queue at the last lock.

12:51 Braunston Junction. Now up the Oxford to Coventry.

Somewhere along the first bit to Hilmorton, the engine started to die. We pulled over to the bank, and filled the tank which seemed to fix it. While we were there, two youths previously buzzing up and down the towpath on a motorbike, came walking along pushing the bike. Even had the cheek to ask us for some fuel!

16:00 Hilmorton Locks. There was a long wait at the top, due to the second lock being out of action, and a large amount of hire boats heading in the other direction. We nicely managed to overtake the hireboat that was in front of us in the other locks, even though we had to wait quite awhile for boats coming up.

20:32 Ansty. From one of the bridges around Sowe Common came a rain of soil, and the sounds of running feet. I tried to get a picture of them, but too late.

20:46 Hawksworth Lock. We moored on the Coventry canal near Hawksworth, and I got the job of cleaning the mud from the top of the boat.

09:35 Bedworth Pit. This is an incredible hole in the ground, I didn’t realize it was so deep until to late, and so didn’t get any really good pictures. Considering it’s closeness to the canal (about 3 feet!) I bet none of it went by canal.

10:18 Hartshill BW Yard.

11:00 Atherstone Top Lock. A large group of people were gathered together on the towpath, and a photographer was in attendance. As far as I could gather, the council had just opened up a path which used the canal towpath.

15:53 Glascote Top Lock.

16:11 Glascote Bottom Lock We ran out of fuel again. It didn’t twig at first, we were running out of fuel, the problem was that there was plenty in the tank. We thought it might have been the fuel pump – the height of the diesel previously enough to push it through the filter. We called someone – I can’t remember who now – an engineer – who mentioned that the fuel pipes could be mixed up, and the flow pipe was really the return!, and got them to send a replacement pump and filter to Sawley as we knew we would be there tomorrow.

18:24 Whittington Wharf.

21:35 Alrewas. We stopped on the only empty bit of piling we could find, unfortunately it was very shallow – hence the reason the mooring was empty. The boat really lurched over. We managed to find a bit not so shallow at one end of the empty bit eventually.