Start of summer cruising

Well, we've finally been able to set off on our usual summer cruise, albeit three months later than we would have done thanks to the infernal virus.  On Thursday 9th July we left our marina and cruised north towards Leicester where at present only essential boat journeys are allowed. But we have a plan and don't intend to go through Leicester. We set off in the rain and only cruised for a mile or so to find somewhere open to moor for the night:

 

You can see the rain lying on the roof and we even have the back cover on to give us some dry space. Helen is on the bow but we haven't fallen out!

Today (Friday 10th) we've carried on towards Leicester and then turned to moor facing south away from Leicester:

First tunnel of 2020 - Saddington Tunnel which is only half a mile long and you can see the other end in the picture.

First Lock of 2020 - Kibworth Top Lock which is the first of 24 locks which take the canal down to Leicester where it joins the River Soar. Kibworth is the first of five locks in this flight. As you can see the weather has been much kinder today.

This is Taylor's Turnover Lock, so called because the towpath changes sides here. The curious tents seen on the right are at a wedding venue. These locks are broad locks but going down they were quite gentle and we had no problems.

We were surprised that these cygnets were so small given it is now July. I don't think the parents got busy mating until later than usual.

Here we are leaving Newton Top Lock. You might notice that we have left the bottom gates open. This is very bad practice and something that we don't normally do if we can help it. But today we only had one more lock to go down before we planned to turn round and come back up the same pair of locks. We only descended these two locks to find a 'winding hole' where we could turn Leo. Added to this we only saw one other boat moving all day so we thought we'd get away with it, and we did.

And here we are coming back up the same lock a little later on.

We moored at a favourite spot at Wistow and this view is taken from a nearby bridge. You can see Leo on the left side of the canal.

The mileposts on this canal are cast iron and this was the one near our mooring. 11 miles from virus city! The intials stand for Grand Junction Canal Company. This company was an amalgamation of several canal companies and was in turn later absorbed by the Grand Union Canal Company.

And finally on this post here is an interested cow (or probably a bullock) on the far side of the canal from our mooring. The building behind and to the left is Wistow Church which you can walk to across the fields.

We are moored here partly to meet our friend Steve who is planning to join us tomorrow for a day cruising back the way we've come back to near Foxton. But more of that in a future post. Our broad plan from here is to go south, so watch this space!