Boat Horse Road

We are now well and truly on our way back to Bugbrooke. It's a lovely day and, as you can see, there's hardly a cloud in the sky. 

Having not seen another boat all morning we were very pleased to be joined by Wine not Whine at the bottom lock.

Ahead of us was a single boater who, it seemed to us, had no idea how to work a lock, even though they had been boating for many years. 

Luckily for us, the Monday crew of volunteers were there to help work the locks for them and us. Note to self: always come through these locks on a Monday!

Here they are working our lock while their colleagues set up the next one ready for us.

A closeup of our approach in tandem to the next lock. Only found out afterwards that the other skipper had never worked a lock like this before but it seems he quite enjoyed it. Well, there's always a first time for everything.

As per custom, stopped in the pound below lock 2 and visited the Navigation, purely as research for a Google review. Lovely meal of scampi and chips and good old fish and chips.

Afterwards we went for a walk to let the review settle and saw a part of Stoke Bruerne that we've never seen before.

I am impressed by the number of information boards that are around. They give a lot of information about the life and work on the canals.

We were walking along the old boathorse road and even passed a metalwork sculpture of one of the horse drawn trollies that would have been used during construction of the canal.

Back at the locks for a look at the second (now disused) lock that I believe was once used as a weighbridge for barges. 

And there we are, almost the only boat in the pound. 

A lovely quiet place with no one to disturb when we use the generator to keep the batteries topped up.

Once again, sausages in cider for supper but this time with proper sausages and a dollop of chicken stock that we made up from last week's roast. Canal life at its best.