North Kilworth

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.9 miles

Total 2262 Locks  96 Tunnels

Running total mileage 3205.6 miles 

Contrary to my wish on the last update, when we woke up the following morning the canal was frozenso it was a case of staying put for a day to wait for it to thaw out again. I have no wish to be a ‘pioneer’ and icebreaker so I’m more than happy to sit and wait for someone else to break the ice up before moving, and that is what we have done today. The first boat through was a little aluminium boat which carved a channel through the ice and about an hour later another more conventional steel boat came through from the direction of Welford, we decided then to move on.

Chatting to the helm on the second boat he stated that he had also moved yesterday when the ice was thicker but had paid for it since a lot of the paint had been scuffed off the bottom of his boat and the red oxide paint was visible in quite a few places. I don’t think we have done much damage to ours today since all of the ice was already broken up before we passed through it. I have a bit of a need to move on since we now have about 6 days worth of coal left and about the same of diesel before I’d start to get concerned about the fuel level. At the last check we were down to 11 marks on the dipstick (a full tank is 29 marks). I don’t want to go below about 5 marks since, if there is sediment in the bottom of the tank, there would be the chance of drawing it into the system.

The forecast for the rest of the week is warmer so I’m hoping that we can get through to Braunston and Calcutt to restock with coal and diesel.