Wednesday 5th August 2020

Still cruising along The Leicester Ring, we left Crick after filling up with water for a lovely cruise to Watford Locks.  We were so close to the M1 for some of the cruise and right by Watford Gap Services at one point.  In all the times I have stopped at those services I never realised the Canal was so close!

There are 7 locks in the Watford Lock flight and we really enjoyed doing them, with a little help from the volunteer lock keepers.

Our mooring tonight was just before Norton Junction where we had really good solar and internet.

Thursday 6th August 2020

Today we travelled just 3 miles, going through Braunston Tunnel and I stupidly decided to walk over the tunnel!  I got completely lost!  It wasn't my fault, the usual path was closed as there is a lot of building work going on and the diversion signs were not good (it definitely was not my fault!).

Paul came and rescued me as I was going round in circles - it's funny now but at the time I was getting a little bit anxious.  A pint at The Admiral Nelson with Bob and Rosemary was necessary in order for me to recover!

On Friday we descended the 6 Braunston locks.  Paul spotted a signwriter on the towpath who is going to put the name back on Bob and Rosemary's boat so we have left them there and we moored opposite a pub called The Boat Stop.

Braunston is lovely, with a nice pub or two, and we had a lovely wander around.

Saturday 8th August 2020

Captain Bob and Lady Rosemary are staying put while the signwriter carries on with their boat so we had a wander up to see them before we set off on our journey today.

We had a lovely afternoon 6.5 mile cruise after stopping at Midland Chandlers and we moored just before Hilmorton Locks.

Sunday 9th August 2020

It was a cold start to our cruise today but the sun came out and we had a lovely cruise down the 3 Hilmorton locks and moored at Newbold, not far from the Barley Mow pub.

On Monday, Paul got the train back to Derby to take Tilly for a haircut.  I walked to the train station with him and then walked back to Hang Loose through Newbold Quarry Park, which was lovely.

Chan brought Paul home on Tuesday and we went to The Barley Mow for lunch before Chan returned home with Winston.  We were moored here next to a very lovely couple called Kev and Heidi and had a few bevvies with them tonight.

Newbold to Hawkesbury Junction

It's Wednesday the 12th August and very, very hot today.  Newbold to Hawkesbury Junction is such a beautiful stretch of canal and we also bumped (not literally) into Jason and Julie on NB Cardinal just as we were leaving Newbold.  We met them on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal last year so it was lovely to have a quick chat with them.  Only one lock today and that was just the stop lock at Hawkesbury Junction.

The very well-known canalside pub here called The Greyhound was our venue for dinner.  There is a post-lockdown scheme called "Eat Out to Help Out" to encourage people back to the pubs etc, and the food is half price!  It was delicious too - and we don't need much persuading to go to the pub!

We have decided to head for Derby now as we want to be close to our family.

On Thursday we cruised 10 miles today with no locks to do and moored at Atherstone Visitor Moorings opposite the now derelict hat factory.

Friday 14th August 2020

It was a really long cruise today of 22 miles to Fradley Junction.  Luckily it was a lovely sunny day as we had 13 locks to do and the cruise took us 11 hours.  We were so lucky that there was just one mooring left when we got to Fradley Junction, otherwise we would have had to do even more locks!

After such a long day, we went to the infamous Mucky Duck for a pint and a lovely meal as we were far too tired to cook!

I didn't take many pictures on the rest of the journey but we cruised from Fradley to Stenson on Saturday, which was 16.8 miles and 11 locks.  This took 8 hours, so another long day.

On Sunday we cruised to Weston, which was 6 miles and 3 locks and only took 2.5 hours, so a pretty easy day today.

As we missed the Ashby Canal and didn't stop on the Coventry Canal to look around, we will definitely come back as there were so many lovely moorings and places to visit.  But for now, we are glad to be back with Chantelle x