A Fuller Day's Boating.

(With both boats - posted by Alan)
(Retrospective Post for Friday 10th August

An uneventful day, and with only two of us working both boats in fairly leisurely style, is the only day where each boat has travelled into double figures for the mileage.

On this stretch of the Northern Oxford we find few really good mooring opportunities that allow us to get both boats into the side without a fuss, and reasonable banks where we are not trying to rely on mooring stakes in "mush", so we usually make this one of the longer days, to get to a suitable overnight mooring.

We did deliberately break the trip twice, for a mixture comfort breaks, shopping, tea, coffee and food.  Firstly we stopped on the now extended Rugby Visitor Moorings at Brownsover, where if you can find a space, the new rings make a tie up very quick.  Cath did the Tesco trip.  Next we stopped at All Oaks Wood- often used by us for overnight stops, but we decided to press on to Hawkesbury.

It rained steadily for much of this - quite a change from much of the recent sweltering heat.

At Hawkesbury we tied up before the stop lock, and were quickly advised we had made a good decision, because if we had gone through the stop lock and made the turn onto the Coventry Canal, all the mooringsd were apparentlty taken along the whole straight out towards Bedworth.

Outside the Greyhound at "Sutton Stop", (Hawkesbury Junction).

We had hoped to eat in the Greyhound, a canal pub that quite remarkably I have not been in since the 1970s, but  notices about 90 minute wait times for food rather discouraged us, and there was no inside seating available.  Instead we sat outside for a quiet pint, and then went back to eat on the boat.



 We are easily up on time, so the final 3 days of the trip should be most leisurely, if nothing unexpected happens.

Hillmorton to Hawkesbury
Miles per boat: 15.2, Miles both boats: 30.4, Locks: 0 
Total Miles both boats: 67.2,  Total Locks both boats: 19