November Cruise: three days and counting...
Plan no. 1: Down the south Oxford, wind at Thrupp, and return. No good, as we wouldn't have got past the stoppage at Marston Doles.
Plan no. 2: Brilliant, I thought. One of our crew has to get a train home on Monday afternoon, so I came up with the brainwave of slipping down the Northampton Arm that day. Again, no. Northampton locks closed.
Plan no. 3: On the GU down to Warwick, up to Kingswood Junction; on the Stratford up to King's Norton Junction; on the Worcester and Birmingham to Birmingham (dropping Will off for his train); down the Birmingham and Fazeley to Aston Junction; down the Digbeth Branch to Bordesley Junction; up the GU to Knowle; down to Warwick; and up to the start (Stockton Top Marina).
As far as I can tell there are no planned stoppages on this route. It does have a few locks (136, gulp!), but with our parameters put in Canalpan AC it comes out at 52 hours' cruising. Yes, it'll be dawn to dusk, but there'll be plenty of "downtime" from 4.00 pm each day.
As Will points out the locks will keep us warm - that's everyone except the helmsman!
Foxton top lock
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Another day of no wind and very misty, The boat ahead started his engine OK
this morning and left about 9-45 [image: DSCF0164]
We only met two boats, one...
5 hours ago
3 comments:
I don't know if you've done much of this route before, but we did all of it in September. The Stockton Locks are always quicker than CanalplanAC suggests, and we even did Hatton in about three hours each way (in spite of having only one person working the locks, and following a pair down). Farmers Bridge is another flight which can be done in much less time than you'd think. One word of warning: Ashted Tunnel slopes in very sharply, so unless you want to remove all the paint along your roof rails, it's a good idea to have someone on the towpath making sure the boat stays into the side.
Yes, we always make up time when doing locks. I have done all of the route before; but the Digbeth Branch must have been 25 years ago, so I've completely forgotten about the tunnel. Thanks for the tip!
No, looking at Nicholson's has jogged my memory: we did the Digbeth about five years ago (in a heat wave). It was Salford Junction we did 25 years ago (on Savoy Hill)
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