On Tuesday the “Stairway to Heaven” almost became the “Highway to Hell”. After a pleasant hour’s cruise to the top of Hatton locks, during which time the weather improved to sunny intervals with gentle breeze, we thought this would be ideal for the descent of said locks. Naturally we fortified ourselves with the all-day breakfast first!
The descent turned out to be a bit of a pain, to be honest. As with Foxton Locks last year, the world, his wife and their grandchildren were out in force to “look at the boat going into the lock”, “look at the boat coming out of the lock”, and in the absence of any boat (and surprisingly there were not many of us about) “look at the lock”. Believe me, we are delighted by the interest people, and especially children, show in our activities, and we enjoy answering their questions (though Brian was a bit stumped by the man who asked him the other day, whilst waiting between two locks, whether he was going up or down).
However, as I said, there were not many boats coming up, so the majority of locks were not in our favour, and chatting with onlookers while keeping an eye out for free-range children interfered with the rhythm somewhat.
By the time we reached the halfway point, we noticed groups of people walking down the towpath then making an en masse beeline for each lock, which they swarmed around aimlessly for a while, clutching what appeared to be mobile phones, and then proceeded to walk across the lock beams and rummage around in the bushes. After a bit I realised the “phones” were actually GPS devices and these people were “geocaching”. (in my day this was called “orienteering” and involved some work with map and compass, but now it seems technology does the brain-work for you. Or am I missing something?).
By the time we reached the last lock we were ready to drop, but the thought of another meal at the Cape of Good Hope spurred us on. For once the moorings there were surprisingly busy, but we managed to fit our 60 feet of boat into a 61 foot gap.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is not great – heavy rain followed by light rain. Still, the heatwave must have been a nightmare for the owners of this boat, moored behind us at the top of the locks
Wednesday saw us boating in the rain for the first time this trip as the forecast unfortunately proved correct. But we can hardly complain – after last year’s trip (25 days, only 3 without the wet stuff) this has been glorious. And I must admit it was a pleasant change not to be coating myself in SPF 50.
After yesterday’s exertions we resolved to start late and finish early, so after a mere 3 hours and two locks we arrived at Radford Semele for a late lunch and a relaxing afternoon. The flowers are not so spectacular here
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