Tunnels and Locks. Braunston to North Kilworth

The. first tunnel I encountered, was before we got to Rugby. It was a short (250yards) tunnel with a light display, switched off at sunset so as not to disturb the bats! It was worth going through for that, showing up all the old brickwork. The tunnel was built to cut the original course of the canal down considerably.

We passed another fantastic feat of human engineering in the shape of an aquaduct for the old railway line, completely redundant now. What a total waste.

However, Braunston tunnel is the seventh longest at 2042yards with no towpath through it, but boats can pass inside. Walkers have to go over the top of the tunnel by means of an old horse path.

It took us almost half an hour the get to the other end and was pitch black other than Richard's halogen offroading light (about 150watts!). I turned the engine room light on to give extra light at the stern but it didn't make much difference. I would not have wanted to break down in there or meet another boat!

Richard negotiating the rope on the approach to a lock.

As we arrived at Norton Junction further on, a lady shouted to us from her lovely cottage garden, (pictured) that she had nearly bought our boat. Did it have a corner bath, "oh yes", I had replied, confident in the fact that we had beaten her to it!

We turned North onto the Grand Union Leicester section to take us up to Watford, where we would moor overnight, to challenge the lock flight first thing. The weather has been fantastic throughout this trip, virtually having no rain and endless sunshine.

Shortly after our arrival, a boat pulled in front of us onto the services mooring and then proceeded to erect a tv aerial. Why should we be bothered? These locks operated via a queue system with the lock keeper. You informed him/her of your arrival and you go in the order they decide. We were a little disgruntled when this chap shunned Richard's offers to assist him to moor, as it appeared he was on his own and then it looked like he was going to queue jump! Later on another boat arrived behind us who were on a mission to do the whole of the Leicester ring in a week! No mean feat as it had just taken us a week to do what they had just done in 3 days! They were 4 really lovely guys from Stockport, interested in us and our boat. In the morning, we told them to go in front of us so that they stood half a chance of achieving their aim and also wouldn't get stuck behind us all the way to Crick! Get this, we also let the old guy go as well so that we would have the canal to ourselves and not feel under pressure. We will go to heaven and actually he turned out to be quite a nice bloke (of few words) with a disabled wife, so had been struggling.

The flight of 7 locks was quite hard to do as going up hill is harder to keep the boat in the right position whilst the water swills around like a washing machine. The locks raise the summit level of the canal to 412 feet taking you under the M1 and immediately regains it's reclusive character.

Crick Tunnel is almost a mile long at 1528yards and again was very dark and had no towpath.

We wanted to stop at Crick for a phonecall from someone saying they would measure and price our boat for a new cratch cover (the acrylic/canvas cover at the front) but they turned out too expensive so we went shopping in Crick instead. What a pretty village, with two pubs and a Co-op and some good ideas for paint colours (woodwork on window frames) for Ryan's bedroom makeover!

The canal meandered for a what seemed like an eternity until we decided to moor just before a village called North Kilworth. The Cobb (a coolsided oven that cooks like a bbq, but tastes like oven cooked) came out and the burgers and sausages were soon cooking on it! Unfortunately, I cooked far too much and the dog had his fill as well, much to Richard's despair as we are trying to get him to lose weight! Richard decided to do some painting to cover up the scratches recently acquired following glancing blows from hire boats and some startlingly very shiny privately owned boats! One nearly gave us a sideways shunt whilst we were under a bridge and could go nowhere. Nevermind, we are not perfect, having 'bounced' off edges of moorings etc. Richard did his best and used up some old gloss, he was happy again.