Waving goodbye to Buckinghamshire, we crossed over the River Ouse on the Iron Trunk Aqueduct into Northamptonshire.
The original route of the Grand Union canal was built descending and climbing the valley using 8 locks, but this was both time consuming and a water management nightmare. Much better to iron out the issues and in 1811, the embankment and aqueduct were opened. It is the oldest broad iron trough aqueduct on our canal system. Not quite as dramatic as the Pontcysyllte, but impressive never the less
Weather wise, we were enjoying some lovely sunny days, Dramatic sunsets,
Rainbows when during the showers fell
And astronomic excitements when we were able to see the Venus and Jupiter conjunction
but it was still too cold to be standing on the helm for long. Unless of course you had to work up the 7 locks of the Stoke Bruerne flight.
It was such a lovely day and although we stretched some muscles that hadn’t seen much action for a while, we felt like spring was in the air… until it rained the next day. Not to worry we’ll be dry in the tunnel.
Ha not a chance…. we’re used to “spurters” in the sides of locks and drippy tunnels, but the amount of water gushing into Blisworth was quite scary.
Made worse by the fact that we could hear it before we could see it. We both had nightmare visions of some Hollywood style tidal wave rushing towards us.
Luckily -obviously, we made it out alive, and settled for a more tranquil night in the village.
Some tunnel facts
• 3,075 yards (2,812 m) long
• the longest wide, freely navigable tunnel in Europe (it’s wide enough for two narrowboats to pass in opposite directions)
• the third-longest navigable canal tunnel in the UK, after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel
• the ninth-longest canal tunnel in the world
• about 143 feet (43m) below ground level
• roughly 18 miles (29km) from the northern end of the Grand Junction Canal at Braunston