The day dawned bright and started warming nicely. Although the towpath was still muddy, it didn't matter too much as we only needed to unmoor and move off. Here's a piccy just before we left:
A pleasant cruise to the Hillmorton Locks where a boat rudely pulled out right in front of us to grab the locks before us, so we decided that as we'd had to stop anyway to avoid hitting the boat, we might as well pull in and top up with water. While the tank was refilling we had breakfast and found this rather elegant couple nearby:
They weren't in the least perturbed by me approaching them with the camera - not even a hiss, until a man with a dog came along, which they were less happy about. We moved off after the water was refilled and efficiently worked our way up the three locks and carried on towards Braunston.
While about to pass another boat in a narrowish part of the canal, I was aware of a big splash on the non-towpath side of the canal, but I couldn't see what caused it. Whatever it was clearly bothered both the oncoming boater and a couple on the towpath who'd also seen whatever it was, but neither party could do anything about it so carried on.
As we arrived at the source of the splash we found it was a large calf that had either fallen into the canal at that moment, or had already fallen in and had fallen back while trying to get out on a very steep part of the bank. We could see that there was no chance of the calf getting out where it was - even a person falling in there would have had trouble climbing out with hands and feet. Having previously rescued a sheep from the canal, I knew how heavy even a soggy sheep was, this calf was probably twice the weight so I didn't reckon I'd stand much chance of helping it out, but I wasn't going to leave it there to drown, so started trying to encourage it a bit further up the canal to a bridge where it looked as though it might have a better chance. While we chivvied the calf up the canal, it came to a section where we could see it might get out, and it too was clever enough to spot the possibility and gamely launched itself at the muddy slope. Without too much difficulty, it got to the top of the bank where the rest of the herd were, shook itself, and carried on grazing as though nothing had happened. So that was our drama for the day - we applauded and carried on.
Eventually, after waiting for what seemed like half an hour at Napton Junction while a succession of hire boats came out of the junction and proceeded to hit the far bank, and then turned, each taking four times as long as such a manoeuvre should take, we eventually managed to carry on towards Napton for our planned evening stop.
At Napton, we were disappointed to find that our first choice of pub to celebrate in was fully booked, so we walked a mile or so up the hill into Napton Village, to the Crown Inn where we were made very welcome and had a nice, if rather basic meal to celebrate Barbara's birthday:
and our wedding anniversary:
and Denzil's birthday, and Barbara's late father Fred's birthday, and her late grandmother Florentyna's birthday!
Any colour in our cheeks is entirely due to the sunburn, not the alcohol.
This is the last entry to this blog as we're now packing and heading home tomorrow - byee.
A pleasant cruise to the Hillmorton Locks where a boat rudely pulled out right in front of us to grab the locks before us, so we decided that as we'd had to stop anyway to avoid hitting the boat, we might as well pull in and top up with water. While the tank was refilling we had breakfast and found this rather elegant couple nearby:
While about to pass another boat in a narrowish part of the canal, I was aware of a big splash on the non-towpath side of the canal, but I couldn't see what caused it. Whatever it was clearly bothered both the oncoming boater and a couple on the towpath who'd also seen whatever it was, but neither party could do anything about it so carried on.
As we arrived at the source of the splash we found it was a large calf that had either fallen into the canal at that moment, or had already fallen in and had fallen back while trying to get out on a very steep part of the bank. We could see that there was no chance of the calf getting out where it was - even a person falling in there would have had trouble climbing out with hands and feet. Having previously rescued a sheep from the canal, I knew how heavy even a soggy sheep was, this calf was probably twice the weight so I didn't reckon I'd stand much chance of helping it out, but I wasn't going to leave it there to drown, so started trying to encourage it a bit further up the canal to a bridge where it looked as though it might have a better chance. While we chivvied the calf up the canal, it came to a section where we could see it might get out, and it too was clever enough to spot the possibility and gamely launched itself at the muddy slope. Without too much difficulty, it got to the top of the bank where the rest of the herd were, shook itself, and carried on grazing as though nothing had happened. So that was our drama for the day - we applauded and carried on.
Eventually, after waiting for what seemed like half an hour at Napton Junction while a succession of hire boats came out of the junction and proceeded to hit the far bank, and then turned, each taking four times as long as such a manoeuvre should take, we eventually managed to carry on towards Napton for our planned evening stop.
At Napton, we were disappointed to find that our first choice of pub to celebrate in was fully booked, so we walked a mile or so up the hill into Napton Village, to the Crown Inn where we were made very welcome and had a nice, if rather basic meal to celebrate Barbara's birthday:
Any colour in our cheeks is entirely due to the sunburn, not the alcohol.
This is the last entry to this blog as we're now packing and heading home tomorrow - byee.
No comments:
Post a Comment