Grand Union welcomes us with a Red Carpet!!

Weston Favell to Gayton, River Nene and Grand Union Northampton Branch, 6.25 miles 20 locks

Saturday saw us through Cogenhoe and past Mo and Vanessa (NB Balmaha), we slowed to a stop for a final chat on the Nene, hoping to meet again this week on the Grand Union Canal somewhere…

And onward while the weather was good to our destination for the rest of the weekend Weston Favell.  This is on the outskirts of Northampton on some pontoons within the wash land area where excess water from the river is stored in huge lakes.  It is very open, there is a ton of wildlife in the area too, there is only a fraction of the wildlife on the canal system to what we have seen on the rivers this summer.. I chose the right day of the weekend to travel.. Sunday we had ugly skies….

This pic is looking towards Northampton about 2 miles in the distance… oh boy it sure did rain too!!

Time then on Sunday to reflect on our summer in the East.. We have enjoyed it very much, although it has been a bit of a ‘hit and miss’ summer, not really sure where we were going most of the time.. Vic had to visit the hospital in Oxford a few times with an ongoing circulation problem in his legs, and Lucy having that dreadful accident in May meaning many many visits to various vets and vet hospitals for operations and care…

Mind you today, bless her, she just couldn’t wait to get back to ‘her towpaths’.. but before we returned back to the world of towpaths there were a couple of locks to do from Weston Favell…

Last year this one was crowded with gongoozlers and I remember really bumping NP on the wall just outside it… mind you it was windy, not so today.. a beautiful morning.. hey this was at 8.30am too.. middle of the night for me.. we had pulled the pins on Weston Favell at 8am.. and I think we probably made Northampton quicker than the traffic on the A45 which I could see was at a crawl as we left our mooring!!

On then to Northampton town lock.. lovely one this…

Then a stop at Morrisons, really handy just before the ‘yellow bridge’ about 200 yards above this lock.  If you can be bothered to walk the trolly back for the pound coin in it, you can actually bring the trolly right to the boat.. I am far too lazy to do that, and prefer to leave the trolly at Morrisons and carry back a two ton rucksack, breaking my back in the process!!.. Ha!!

Teehee… But I knew once I started that engine again then it was goodbye to the wonderful rivers of the east of england… I got fed up last year having to leave this area.. felt much the same this year, but we do need to be further south in the winter.. family want to visit and it’s too much to ask them to journey to the east from the south coast.. sooooooooooo

Back to British Waterways.. through the first lock and…………………………….

Great start!!…. so a wait here while the dredging was going on before continuing under the bridge to pick up a carpet on our prop!! ..

It was a pleasure to catch up with John Sinclair again.. well he caught up with us actually as we were late on our estimated arrival at the bottom of the flight of 13 locks which are close together … John helped us down the flight on my birthday in May, and here he was again to see us back on to the system….

So we are now moored above the top lock.. I suppose it’s OK being back on the canals.. must mean it’s getting near Christmas again.. lots to do though, we need to be in Newbury at the end of the month… ah easy peasy!!