Busy Day Again

Today we were woken up at 7am by two old work boats passing by in close proximity. A very recognisable deep 'throbbing' from the old piston engines. By the time I was awake enough to realise what was happening and able to grab my camera, they were past us and approaching the lock ahead of us.

We got ourselves organised and about 2 hours later, just as I put the kettle on, we spied our fellow lock companions from yesterday approaching, so we quickly cast off to share the water as we passed through Bascote Locks and beyond. A lovely stretch of canal which crosses both a railway line and the River Avon on aqueducts. We stayed together until reaching Royal Leamington Spa where they, Lesley and Mike (Ottawa) decided they had had enough. Not sure if it was us or whether they just didn't want to go any further. However they had to turn round at some point and go back as they only had a week for cruising.

The highlight of the day was a gathering of Police and men in dark suits in unmarked vans. We saw them approach a tented area which, given my experiences of working with the late Philip Madoc playing Police Inspector Bain for many series of "A Mind To Kill" suggested to me that a body had been found in the woods adjacent to the canal and the men in dark suits were about to collect it. But what do I know?
Just before the above incident happened we were overtaken, because I was emptying the toilet cassette, (these things have to be done as and when the opportunity arises) by an unusual craft that we had seen yesterday. It is the oldest known conversion of an original horse drawn working boat and dates back to the 1930's. She is called 'Elizabeth'.

Apparently she is unique...and so were its owners. Didn't stop arguing all the time we were close to them. Lovely sounding 'throb' to the engine though.

Up ahead of us we knew that Hatton locks were beckoning. 21 locks climbing ever upwards so we thought we should take a break for lunch before attempting them. Or maybe we should not start until tomorrow? Our guidebook suggested that a good place for lunch might be The Cape of Good Hope just above The Cape locks. "Serving good food, especially fish". Well another lesson learnt. Don't believe the guidebook! Old world waterside pub. Probably serves good beer, the Rioja was certainly drinkable, as was the scrumpy, according to Sue. But the fish was not even average. Nice location though.

After Sue had a snooze (probably induced by the scrumpy) and I pottered about a bit and having waited for any boat to come along to save water, we decided to start the climb on our own. We got through 5 locks at our own pace before we felt too tired to carry on. So moored up for the night between the 5th and 6th locks. And so a glass of Rioja and off to bed.