The Moment of Truth!

We chilled over the weekend watching the telly with Strictly and the Grand Prix on and decided to set off on Monday. The leak from the tank was very slowly drying out, and what Del fixed, might have done the trick.

His elbow has come up in a bit of a lump after being down that small hole at the water tank.

We undid the chains at 7.30am and cruised into the rising sun, which was beautiful as well as a problem for us all the way.

  The next problem was the time of year where the canal is covered in leaves, but we are used to that.

The Grand Union is a pretty canal and is well used by boats.

 We soon got to the Northampton arm and then through Blisworth.

It was quiet through the wooded section up to the tunnel but just as we were entering a boat came out.

In the tunnel we met another boat and he was going very slowly with only the navigation lights on and a flickering light on the stern deck. He thanked us for passing him slowly and we then noticed he was magnet fishing. We arrived at Stoke Bruerne in bright sunshine and pulled up on the water point, The moment of truth!

Del wiped down Derwent6 from the tunnel drips and got rid of our rubbish, as we filled with water. We then waited for a boat to go down the locks with but nothing arrived after 45 minutes so we went on our own.

These locks are really interesting as you can see the rope makes still on the walls from the late 1800's.
We know this a busy little tourist spot, but we still don't see the need for the nice new signs all over the place, when the coping stones in the locks need some cement to hold them in place.

We will lose these wonderful locks if they are not regularly maintained.

We would rather the money spent on a sign saying "Please Donate to ******"
Moan over, we carried on in the lovely weather and it was good to see loads of dredging work had been done here. Again its very pretty and the sun was still in our faces, very nice!

After a hour and a half we came into Cosgrove with its lovely bridge, and dropped down the lock to find a mooring.

We were lucky enough to get the last space and it wasn't under the trees.

Tooty was off in a flash again to suss things out..
Del then checked the water pump and it looked like the water leak from the tank had stopped. Lets hope it now dries out so it can be painted..