Blisworth to Bugbrooke

Wednesday 1st November

Finally back on board after having a lovely time out to visit friends and family.

We bought a new car whilst we were away as the poor Scenic has been getting worse and has hardly any power. So we decided to get a 4 x 4 and bought a Jeep patriot which we are really pleased with.

We will keep it with us on this next part of the journey as it's easy to find parking spaces along the canal. So the first thing to do was drive the Jeep further along the canal and walk back with Dex. John did that whilst I got the boat ready for departure.
John was steering and I walked with Dex along the towpath. First stop was to fill up with water and get pumped out! Our lives are filled with excitement 😀

 I liked this boat called Woodstock as have always been a Snoopy fan 😀

 You can see we now have our lifebelt fitted on the back of the boat which gives more space on the roof and it's easier to access.

This stretch of canal really reminded us of the Kennet and Avon, open views across fields and plenty of room to pass other boats.

We passed this cheese boat but sadly it was going in the opposite direction!

 When we arrived at the water point there was a queue so I hopped on board and we set off along the Northampton arm to the marina where we could get pumped out.

Luckily we were able to fill up with water here as well as getting pumped out so that was nice and easy. We needed to turn round so headed for the winding hole. We had already decided not to take the boat along the Northampton arm as it is only a short journey but has lots of locks and is right by the main road so very noisy. The winding hole was just before the first lock. 

 It was a really tricky winding hole as just past a tight bend but John managed it without any problems.

We could see the first narrow lock along the Northampton arm. John walked part of this stretch with Dex so I'll report on that another time. We were headed west towards Gayton. 

We soon got back to Gayton junction where the Northampton arm joins the main part of the Grand Union. A boat was just leaving so we were able to moor up and quickly dispose of our rubbish. 

 We then turned right and headed on towards Bugbrooke. 

 This boat had a beautiful painted panel on the front. 

This boat called Imagine was covered with the lyrics from the song!

 The railway line was right next to the canal so it was quite noisy as the Virgin trains rushed past. It didn't seem to bother the cows though!

 We went under this amazing old bridge at Gayton which was actually a double bridge with one section for the road to cross the canal and the other section was used by the horses to cross over when they were pulling the boats.

We arrived at Bugbrooke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugbrooke to find that there were only 3 boat spaces on the official moorings and these were all full so we travelled on a bit further past the Wharf pub and managed to find a lovely spot under some trees.  

We then had to walk back along the towpath to collect the car. It's good exercise anyway for us all!