Quite a bit of rain overnight, but by 7:00 just the odd light shower. At Roxton Lock we met our first set of top and bottom pointy doors. These lock can be worked a bit faster. Thereafter locks seemed to get deeper and more difficult to work every time until Castle Mill Lock deepest of them all really caught us out with a side fill ground paddle (or slacker as they are called here). I spent ages trying to get a rope for and aft using the mooring rod slots in the wall (no risers) only to find, that with the side fill the boat would have been just stuck to the right hand wall without any. At Cardington Lock, our last today, we came across the Fire and Rescue service having a practice. This lock has a guillotine gate but seemed very narrow and indeed, checking, found it to be 3.15 metres wide. So not big enough for two narrowboats or indeed a broadbeam more than 10ft wide. So if the Bedford/Milton Keynes link was built then this would be a choke point.
We had booked into Priory Marina for a week in order to return home to carry out one or two obligations. It seems well organised and we are now on a secure mooring with electricity and well set up. First night free for GOBA members. We continue our journey next Friday.
The foot bridge in Bedford is quite low. I did an emergency stop to save the exhaust stack.
Posted by: Brian Holt | April 26, 2013 at 23:13
Thanks for the warning Brian. We had the same on the Nene and then I bent the TV aerial the next day.
Posted by: Michael Fisher | April 29, 2013 at 12:51