Norton Junction and the Leicester line

With Amy’s help we did the Buckby locks easily. I then hitched a lift back to Suffolk leaving Eric to polish the floors while I attended to some essential maintenance back home. The trouble with the visitor moorings at the Norton junction is that they are restricted 48 hour stay. They’re fine for an overnight stay but otherwise mundane and functional.  Not knowing how long I needed to be off the boat, Eric decided to cruise around the corner onto the Leicester line. Oh what a treat. Plenty of good 14 day official mooring and even more unrestricted mooring with pilings all within 5 minutes walk of the New Inn pub (that does good fish and chips) it’s even got a water point.

Once I was back on board we cruised up to the Watford Locks.  I still find it amusing to find us travelling at 2 or 3 miles an hour right alongside a motorway. This time the M1 and the Watford gap service station. 

I know which side of the fence I prefer to be on. But this wasn’t the time for us to venture back into the ‘north’ so we winded Firecrest and returned to moor near the juntion ready to head to Braunston.

One of the downsides of this mooring is that it’s quite a hike to the convenience store at Long Buckby, so on Monday we pulled pins and turned right under the bridge at the toll house, in search of a pint of milk.I believe this gorgeous cottage is now a holiday let But it was once the home of Major Feilding and his wife Ivy, who were canal minister with the Salvation Army.

We stopped at the East end of the Braunston Tunnel to walk into Daventry to restock the larder. Lots of boats coming through the tunnel and we got a lovely surprise when we saw Mike off NB Mister E. Mike’s boat was just being completed at Braidbar when we were planning Firecrest. He’d made us very welcome so it was an ideal opportunity to repay the hospitality and show him around our boat.