From Fox Bridge No 52 to Ladybird Moorings, a distance of 4 miles, 5¾ flg and 5 locks.
It made a change to be woken up not by the sound of rain on the roof but by the sound of bird song and bright sunshine streaming in round the curtains – could it be that the good day that the weathermen had forecast for Sunday had actually arrived 1 day late?
Start : Fox Bridge No 52
Finish : Ladybird Moorings
But by the time we actually got under way the wind had picked up a bit and there were some dark clouds starting to form. We did find that the good mooring by Hallemans Bridge No 53 was empty so we could have pushed on but it was probably better to be safe than sorry.
We made pretty good time to Tyrley Top Lock No 3 where we found someone cleaning the toilet block, and it almost felt wrong to dump the Elsan! There were a few boats working through the locks and a couple of the overflows were running very fast – specifically the one below Tyrley Lock 4 No 6 which, as I was trying to pass another boat coming up, pushed us onto the offside bank. I had to wait until the boat coming up hit the same flow, and shielded us from it, to use the barge pole and a lot of revs to get us back into the channel.
There were quite a few boats on the visitor moorings but luckily none opposite us and once I’d waited for a boat to come past we slid into the moorings and tied up.