Great Doddington

Here I am Rune

Distance 4.6 miles

Total 4150 Locks  264 Tunnels

Running total mileage 6,388.9 miles

 

Didn’t really get as far as I was hoping, but decided to stop on Manor Farm FORN Moorings rather than risk going on to Hardwater Mill moorings and finding them full.

 

Stopped off in Wellingborough to pick up the weekend shop so we now have no real rush to get to Northampton before Monday when we intend to put into the marina to carry out some repairs amongst other things. Can’t really say Wellingborough has much to recommend it, although in fairness we only skimmed the outskirts. It doesn’t really sell itself viewed from the river since it has a fairly brutalist Wellington HMP overlooking the river.

For tomorrow we will just get as far as we feel we want to go, it is another section with not a lot of available moorings and we’re about 9 miles and 11 locks out of Northampton. Might stop at Northampton Washlands or Midsummer Meadows, although by the time we’ve reached the latter we are more or less in Northampton.

 

Ditchford

Here I am Rune

Distance 8.6 miles

Total 4150 Locks  264 Tunnels

Running total mileage 6,384.3 miles

 

As planned we’ve got as far as Ditchford FORN moorings, and a very pleasant location it is. Nicely isolated, railway line nearby, but not too near, otherwise very peaceful. We’re still plodding on with just the one alternator, which does squeal a bit in the morning when starting up but so far has then behaved itself, hope it continues to do so until we get to Northampton.

We think we’ve now gone through the last manually operated guillotine bridge, although raising a ton and a half of gate is a reasonably good work-out, you can have too much of a good thing!

Not sure exactly where we’ll get to tomorrow, will call in at Wellingborough for the sanitary station, but I’ve a horrible feeling it was locked up when we came down, hope it is back working although even if it isn’t we still have sufficient capacity to get us to Northampton.

 

Woodford

Here I am Rune

Distance 12 miles

Total 4145 Locks  264 Tunnels

Running total mileage 6,375.7 miles

 

An excellent day for autumnal cruising, after the early cloud cleared it was a warm and sunny afternoon travelling back to the Woodford, Friends of the River Nene mooring that we used on the way down. My original hope was either Islip Dave FORN mooring or Thrapston Bridge mooring, but both were full so we pressed on another two or three miles and a couple of locks back to here.

 Coming from this direction I’m hoping to plan the overnight stops better than we were able to do coming down since we ended out on a lock mooring for one night. Tomorrow I’m hoping to get to Ditchford FORN mooring or, failing that Manor Farm FORN mooring, which then, hopefully, puts us within a day and half of Northampton.