It's about 4 hours from Wolverton through the Milton Keynes Park to Stoke Hammond Lock where the climb up to the summit in the Chiltern Hills starts. After this isolated lock one gets to the Soulbury Three locks, often the source of problems as the locks are very close and the intervening ponds short. If boaters misbehave and rush through without due regard to other traffic it is easy to drain the pounds. So it was this time. One lock further on is the Wyvern Hire base and naturally many boaters are inexperienced and make simple errors like not putting paddles fully down. The two boats ahead of us made that mistake, the first taking forever filling the middle lock and actually managing to get the top gets open in the end in spite of one bottom paddle still 6 inches up. Of course, in the process they had pretty well drained the top pound. The next boat tried to do the same, but was nipped in the bud by a crew member from another hire boat sharing the lock with us. I had to go up to the top in the end to let some water down to bring the levels up.
After all this we continued on through Leighton Buzzard and continued the climb up Ivinghoe and Seabrook and finally the two bottom Marsworth Locks to occupy our mooring we had on the outward journey. A long day - eleven and a half hours. Very yummy casserole from the slow cooker with tarte tatin to follow.
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