Vast skies of blue from Crofton to Hungerford

Today, Tuesday 14 September, we left Windsor on our way to London, with Barry's son Tom aboard for a couple of weeks.  Sadly we're slipping further and further behind on the posts due to the number of visitors we've had once again (wonderful! really!) so apologies to our readers, but I'll aim to do a brief update daily prior to the main posting ...

Thursday 2 September

It was another tiring day on Thursday, negotiating 13 locks in about six miles.  We didn't stop anywhere along the way, arriving in Hungerford just before 1700hrs, but the day was bright and beautiful weather-wise once more - how marvellous!   It's truly a pleasure to be on the canals in the open on days like this, the sky looks so vast when there's no clouds and you're not amongst tall buildings - the only whiteness seen above was vapour trails from passing planes - oh and the odd flying swan ...

 Barry managed to get a shot of a passing swan ...

 and again as it water-skied along the canal on landing - phenomenal!

 A bit of a hold-up at this lock at Crofton, where only one paddle works

Boats waiting patiently to go through the lock

Last night we'd picked some apples from beside the canal that had been put out by someone as a 'help yourself' from their windfall, so I'd made a pie - there were some more at another lock today so I helped myself and will take them to Viv's tomorrow for another pie!  We'd also picked some blackberries and plums along the way which were added - I love how we can make the most of nature's bounty as we travel.

 Lock, after lock ...

 after lock ... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 after lock!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lock on the right is the one with the swing bridge in the middle of the pound - as you can see it's not normally possible to go in without opening it, though this little cruiser managed to sneak in the front of the lock and not have to! 

 

 Edging our way in for Barry to jump off and open the swing-bridge ...

Down we go, last lock before our Hungerford mooring

We were extremely fortunate to get a mooring just behind the 24 hours ones past the swing-bridge, so it meant we could feasibly stay there for up to 14 days we believe.  There were even sturdy metal things to tie our ropes to.  I always a worry leaving the boat for any length of time, but lots of them we know are left for months in such places and we've only once seen a boat come away from it's mooring in all the time we've been here - and never heard of boats being broken into.

Once secured, it was a quiet night in packing, reading, eating, drinking and blogging!  Tomorrow it's off on the train to the sunny South West, to see my younger sister Viv.for some not so quiet nights!

We moored just past this swing-bridge