It had been a hot sticky night, but this morning boat temperature was 25C. As Napton Flight of locks doesn’t open until 09:00 (conservation measure for low water levels) I didn’t want to rush. I had estimated it would take 1/2 hour to reach the spot where I would normally moor on first night on the route to Banbury. It took me an hour and 10 minutes. So I got to the bottom of the flight at 10:00. On the way at Napton Narrowboats, I had to wait while the crew of a rather long boat struggled to reverse it out from under the bridge to position it stern first, using a pole at the stern, into one of the rather narrow moorings being the only space in what at this time of the year would normally be many. I always like to think, ‘How would I seek to perform that manoeuvre’. Well they didn’t give up and succeeded in the end. They just wanted to turn the boat round. Anyway arriving at the bottom of the flight there was no queue and as a boat had very recently passed me I had good reason the believe the lock was empty. My guess was confirmed by the sight of a volunteer lock-keeper who opened the gates for me. It got better and better because a second lock-keeper appeared whom offered to get the next lock ready for me, and the next, and the next right up to Napton Top without a break. Thankyou Jan! It fulfilled the working boatmans’ aim, that the boat should never stop moving in lock flight. Ordinarily of course my late wife Pat would have been the walker, but we never achieved this. Tuesday does tend to be a bit quiet Jan said. The flight is on restriction and unless there is a change in the weather, opening hours are going to get shorter. Will I be able to get back in three weeks time?
Then came the top pound with a short stop for lunch and on past the HS2 works. The whole site is massive. I observed convoys of trucks moving spoil over the haul road bridge, presumably to form the huge embankment which will lead down from the short railway viaduct, the fundamentals of which look to be about 2/3 complete. But the huge mounds of spoil piled up all over the place cover a huge area. When you see a site like this you realise that to abandon the whole project now would consume just as much money as finishing the job because of the restitution needed, not to mention the tunnels and the Colne Valley Viaduct which cannot really have any other use.
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