Woosh we beat the weather and arrive at Hillmorton

Sunday and today – Moored Hillmorton
Saturday – Hawkesbury Junction to Hillmorton, Oxford Canal, 15 miles 0 locks

I have a meeting coming up, and need to be within striking distance of Rugby so we decided to pull the pins on Saturday in case the weather really closed in and kept us from moving in the next few days.

I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of work that has been done to the towpaths in this area.  Firstly, before reaching Hawkesbury on Friday, I noticed some work done there where it used to be really muddy… Then at Ansty, not far south of Hawkesbury..

The edge has been neatly worked on and replanted with grasses.. all very nice, pity about the M6 which you can see in the background.

We caught a boat up today.. yep even WE can catch a boat up.. hey in fact we actually passed one last Friday.. would you believe it was a Canaltime boat too!! .. Teehee, for those not in the know, I do tend to go quite slowly along the cut, I am never in much of a hurry, so to actually overtake another boat is a rarity indeed! 

Anyway I caught a boat up at the Rose Narrowboats little yard where there is a small swing bridge that the workforce use to get from the office to the workshop.. there are boats moored in this area all over the place, and only enough room for one boat to pass through all the moored boats and also the little swing bridge.  I was right up behind a very slow boat when another hire boat decided he was going to come through first.. ah ha!.. No chance.. here the mayhem as I follow the chap with the red tunic on!…

The strengthening wind was not helping anyones cause, and the hireboat sensibly backed off but then got blown into the bushes as you can see.. well he couldn’t of got by me anyway!…

And the boat in front.. well after this he pulled over and I gave him a friendly wave smiling as I saw the name of his boat….. “No Rush”!!

We thought we might moor at Newbold, firstly though on through the tunnel.. here it is again, by the way, with it’s lights blazing away in a blue, green and red rainbow effect..

Newbold didn’t look inviting this time around, so we continued onward.  On reaching Rugby, the visitor moorings were a right mess, the lovely weeping willows on the parkland had been drastically cut back, and on the towpath side all the trees had gone and the land flattened for quite some area.. obviously more development about to happen.. not stopping here as there were reports from Chas and Ann of NB Moore2Life that the last time they moored there they were intimidated by drug users in the park..

Eventually moored at Hillmorton, and the first thing I did was to phone the Lock Stock Bistro to see if they had a table for Sunday Lunch.. yep.. Yeah I know, diet.. but I can’t miss Sunday Lunch at this, perhaps the best pub on the system for a roast dinner can I?

Anyway, I have lost a pound this week, not bad when you consider that I had that fry up at Ikea, steak and chips at Hawkesbury.. OK, OK, so this week I will cut back even more.. well it was worth it, the roast was delicious, and made even more so when Chas and Ann decided to move Moore2Life up from Napton during the morning to join us.

It was great to meet up with them again, and Molly, Ann and Chas’ lovely jack russell, got quite a shock to see Lucy’s new friend Meg.. I don’t think Molly is too sure about Meg yet!

Weather was OK today.. not quite what the forecast was, but I don’t think they were too sure exactly what was going to happen.