Fog lights on near Grubb Street

Norbury Junction to Knighton, 5 miles 0 locks

Brrrrrrrr cold this morning when I poked my head out, no wind at all, there was ice around me.. the cut (canal) was ice free though, but the water hoses were frozen.

Mick of Norbury Wharf Ltd finished off the last bit of the re-designed dinette, it’s just the seat ends that needed altering.. we had the ends as the doors literally and they kept coming open everytime the cushions pushed up against them.. we tried many types of catches, none would work properly, so now we have a solid piece of wood in the ends, with the cupboard door cut out. 

A grand job done too.. this boatyard is perhaps the best boatyard I have come across.  Their attention to detail is important to them, and the work they have done for us this year has been excellent, and very fair pricing too.The dinette is much better now, but no way could we have done that with the tools we have.  Pics later when we have put the knobs on and varnished it.

Somebody knows the boat nearest the camera!!.. Teehee   This will make one of my blog readers very happy, because this boat had just been brought to the wharf, it is very shortly going to have an engine dropped into it, probably tomorrow as the newly painted engine bay was not quite dry today.  See Lucy and Meg getting some TLC while they explore other people’s boats.. a right pair of boat dogs they are!

Filled with water once the hoses had thawed and made our way northwards from Norbury Junction.  We had got some wood near Knighton when we passed last time, and we knew there was plenty more there when we left.. good stuff that was, it burned well.  So onward then through that very odd ‘High Bridge’..

The late morning was gorgeous with some warm sunshine, but we had not gone far when it was on with the headlamp as the fog descended when we crossed the embankments..

At one point it seemed really thick, and even at 3mph it was very difficult to see if anything was coming, and I was really pleased that most of the people we passed had their headlamp on, I saw that well before actually seeing the outline of the narrowboat.

There is a stretch from Bridge 42 for one and a quarter miles which has moored boats the whole way along the offside.. I bet the farmer makes an absolute fortune.. anyway it is such slow going.. it took me just over 40 minutes to do that bit.  I can understand why boats are going past moored boats faster these days.. blimey, if out on a narrowboat holiday wanting to do one of these rings, the hirers must be under real pressure to go faster.. I blame the boatyards a lot for telling people they can ‘do the ring cruising 10 hours a day’  Well that is OK as long as you go 3mph all day!

The major Shebdon Embankment work is doing well, they have done about 80% of the pilings now on the non-towpath side, and today with the fog, it was carefully does it as we pass the massive raft with the machinery on..

If you look carefully you can see the height of the pilings that they are putting in, look at the guy on the bank with the white hat, he is standing right by one of the browny coloured pilings about 20–25ft high.

When we arrived at Knighton at the place where we got the wood last time.. Aghast!  All gone, someone had got there before us!

So we winded (turned) just north of Bridge 48, but spied some other wood on the offside which we grabbed on the way back to our mooring this evening.  I like it here, tis very very quiet, nice change after our last two nights in the boatyard.