Today (Fri) we have travelled about 10 miles. The scenery is lovely but the mooring situation is dire! That said we have struck lucky tonight with a semi rural position near the golf course between Clifton and Hillmorton, just outside Rugby, on proper iron rail moorings. The only problem is that being near several hire boat centres Ken is being momentarily plagued with hire boats, either starting or finishing their holidays and interrupting his fishing! Hopefully things will improve when it gets dark. I should point out at this juncture that Ken is doing what practically amounts to armchair fishing! Sitting, as he is, in the cratch, with the heat from the fire warming him and a drink in his hand! Not exactly uncomfortable. Later on he will actually come in and sit in the easy chair and listen for his bite indicators to go off. Not much evidence of that last night I have to say, as I had to wake him up to pack his gear up at 10 pm!
We did have a bit of a mooring situation this morning when George decided to come and tell us he needed to get off and there was just nowhere suitable to stop. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of him jumping up and down and growling at us from the bottom of the steps we had to pull over and improvise. The trouble with the canal banks here is that, they are either made of huge rocks that jut out so you have to moor about a foot from the bank, or it is too shallow to get near them! Suffice to say we managed, although Ken nearly dropped George in the canal while putting him back on. (This may have had something to do with me and a rope but the least said about that the better!)
We managed to find a nice pub at lunchtime (as you do) and George was allowed in, which was just as well as it was bloody nippy outside today! After this we were going to go to Tesco’s, which we could actually see from the canal as we passed, but we couldn’t find anywhere to moor up (again) so we gave it a miss!
Tomorrow we should get to Braunston, boating mecca of the canals! This is where we turn off the Oxford Canal and on to the Grand Union Canal. Hopefully the mooring situation will improve!
Cheers B.
