We have been very lucky with the weather this year. It’s another great day to be on the canal.
We are at Priors Hardwick, about 2 hours cruise away from our meeting point with Clare and Aly this evening.
Some pictures from yesterday / this morning.
We are meeting Clare & Aly at the bottom of the Napton flight Friday evening. The weather forecast looks great but slightly windy today. I woke up early (05:15) and the wind was OK so we made a start.
We have travelled one lock and now stopped for breakfast
So the day started with it raining pretty heavily, so as we were only an hour from the marina we hung around at our overnight mooring until it passed. We travelled through the two locks and have arrived back at our home mooring.
Back at Cropredy Marina the wildlife has been busy!
5 baby signets
Three baby ducks huddled together.
So this is the last cruising day of the holiday.
The weather forecast was for thunder storms around 15:00 but by 19:00 when we stopped we had seen no rain – phew!
We past some amazing canal side properties, here is an example
We have spent the day meandering back up the South Oxford canal towards Banbury.
This is the view from the lock, its strange coming up in the middle of a shopping centre!
We have moored up about 30 minutes from our Cropredy home, we were treated to an amazing evening light show
So the sun sets on the holiday, we have had an amazing time with great weather. We now looking forward to the Duke arriving, going to Crick boat show, and having a trip back up the canal on Monday.
Todays map
Today was spent travelling down the Oxford canal toward Oxford. The scenery continues to be beautiful and the weather brilliant – although it looks like today was the last day of good weather!
We have turned round at Kirtlington and then stopped overnight just outside Kirtlington, next to the river Cherwell which is now noticeably larger than it is in Cropredy. The Cherwell soon feeds into the Thames.
No pictures today as hard at it at the tiller! A noticeable mention today for Wendy who took the boat in and out of a lock unaided.
Tomorrow we start to head back to Cropredy for the weekend visit of the Duke family to which we are really looking forward to.
The map of the day
Today’s trip took us to new territories, out of the Marina and turn right, this takes us right through the centre of Banbury and eventually on to Oxford, you can also join the Thames.
Stumbled across a farm shop, they have sofa’s fire pits and sell local Gin and Cider. For us we needed a few mushrooms which they had.
Wendy with the cows.
Even the cows were enjoying a paddle.
This is where the river Cherwell just flows directly across the Oxford Canal, as its been dry it was fine but judging by the size of the weir it must get pretty hairy at times.
Todays map
Ok, Its a day late…
A busy day, taking the boat from Napton locks all the way back to Cropredy, thats 15 miles and 17 locks.
We started at Napton and worked through the locks, this is the view from “top Lock”
This is a tricky right hand turn, not that much room for a 68 footer.
The trip from Napton down to Cropredy was really nice, some beautiful scenery and a lovely warm day.
Short trip along the Oxford approaching the marina.
On arriving at Cropredy the reflection of the sky was fantastic
Now for that age old question, does my bum look big in this 🙂
When we arrived back at the Marina our post had arrived, I had been quite active on amazon and eBay!
Among the essential items was wine (thanks Naked wines) and a tea cosy 😀
This is the map of the day.
Its Sunday so we went to Church for the pentecost service at St Lawrence in Napton on the hill, This is a lovely village church, very welcoming and even remembered us from last time we were there.
After church we walked back down the hill to the folly pub for a sunday lunch, while we were waiting for our very substantial lunch to arrive we were treated with some very traditional english dancing!
We will stay here tonight and move on through the Napton lock flight tomorrow heading for Cropredy.
Another quiet morning, we had moored in a place where we had internet and that allowed us to watch the royal wedding – didn’t she look lovely.
After that we have made it to the bottom of Napton locks. Tomorrow we will make the walk up to St Lawrence for their sunday service.
We have now changed our route, we were going to make our way to Warwick, but now we will head back to Cropredy where we have a wine delivery waiting 🙂
Today’s journey
We left Coventry earlyish before the wind picked up again, we have largely retraced our journey back up the North Oxford canal heading for Braunston junction where we will then head for Warwick
During our journey, through the interweb we heard that Megan Duke passed all the interview process and has made on to the CISCO apprentice scheme, well done Megs.
Mick was driving for a while today and needed some refreshment!
Todays journey was just about a record for us, covering 22 miles!
