To the Oxford Canal summit

The weather forecast for today was for rain in the afternoon, so I thought I’d get a reasonably early start and then see how far I got before deciding to stop, the next real place of interest being Fenny Compton, 9 locks and roughly 9 miles away.

I needed water and rubbish clearing along with ‘the emptying of the cassette’ first, so at 8am I prepared everything and then as often happens two boats came along, I waited 10 minutes then walked the couple of hundred yards until I could see if they had stopped on the water point, they hadn’t so I walked back and cast off, stopped and filled with water, moved across and emptied rubbish and loo, just as I was finishing someone was leaving the first lock (8), so I waved and they left the gates open for me, a good start

Leaving Lock 8 and Napton on the Hill

all the locks were in my favour with just two little waits for people coming the other way through them, at Lock 14 you can see how black the sky was, you can also see the boats moored in the Engine House Arm, which was dug to allow boats to bring coal to a stationary steam engine which pumped water back up to the summit, now it is just used for residential moorings.

Lock 14

Entrance to the Engine House Arm

At the last lock for today (16) there was a volunteer lockie so no work for me again, a good easy run of nine locks but as I was leaving this lock it began to rain, just a shower but quite heavy, waterproof jacket on.

After the lock there were a lot of boats moored on the right and not much room and as I came around a blind bend I was faced with a boat heading towards me, neither of us had sounded our horns, not many people do and although I did when I first started I have mostly dropped the habit (you do feel foolish sometimes when no-one else bothers) but in future I will again consider it more often, there was a gap in the moored boats so with some very careful slow maneuvering I was able to move into the boat sized gap and as the other boater passed me, move off again, carefully!

I now had a lock-free  run of about 7 miles to Fenny Compton so I thought now would be a good time for tea, before I could stop though there was another heavy shower. Having stopped I thought I might call it a day, but it brightened, so off I went again passing Paul on N.b. James who runs the information packed Living on a Narrowboat site.

I then passed this interesting little mooring, he’s dug himself a boat size hole and made good the canal bank after, I hope he’s sorted out some type of water filtering or that ‘pond’ is going to get stagnant and very unpleasant especially if his sink discharges into it as most boats do, but I guess he doesn’t need to pay C&RT for a licence J

That looks odd.

Self contained ?

The sky was now looking very black and as I came through bridge 123 I saw a nice section of piling and thought ‘that will do me’, so I am moored there, not another boat in sight, no walkers or cyclists as this is the summit of the Oxford and very remote although HS2 is due to pass through virtually the middle of this lock-free section (if it ever gets built) which would be a shame but we do need good transport links (just not in my backyard eh). Oddly though I have 173 TV channels here.

Tonights mooring

Totals today: 4 miles : 9 Locks