The ascent of boat

After attending to some urgent food shopping, Chris swaps our stern rope (or line) with the centre-line which has become badly frayed. A new stern line has been bought from Tooley's and when attached we set off from Banbury; a short visit but one we've thoroughly enjoyed.

There are now some significant changes evident in the Oxford. The very first lock we come to has double gates into the lock instead of just the one.
This means that although each gate is much lighter to shift than a single bottom gate, there's a walk right around the lock to open the second gate for the boat to enter. Then the gates are fairly easily closed by two boaters, but a solo boater will have to walk all the way around the lock again, or be very athletic and jump the half lock gap!

As the canal climbs towards the top pound - stretch of canal where locks at either end are both descending ones - we pass through the village of Cropredy, where we spent one of our first holidays together at a folk music festival here. The countryside to the west is more visible as we ascend, with fewer high, dense hedges obscuring north Oxfordshire's pastureland and low hills.

As we complete our next lock, a boater approaching us from the north tells Jo that there's a probable delay at the lock they've just come from, where CRT had to be called out to release a gate jammed open by a crushed metal chimney. We arrive there to find a queue of boats waiting to ascend - they've been stuck below the lock for nearly three hours! We are very glad not to have to wait anywhere near that long to get through and without a hitch.

Another change in the canal here is that as we ascend, so each pound is a little shallower than the previous one. Passing oncoming boats is getting slower as we find ourselves listing as we steer our hull onto silted up water close to the bank. Increasingly we have to reverse a few yards before Pelangi is free from the shallow bottom.
Tonight we're mooring up near just before the Claydon Flight which closes at 3pm. Quite a remote spot; it is so quiet here. Wonderful!Baca lagi