Tuesday 12 June 2012

Market Harborough to Kilby Bridge

Yesterday(Monday) we awoke to fairly heavy rain, which kept up for most of the day.  We were invited for coffee and cake on nb Eleventh Heaven– and superb cake it was too – thank you Les and Chris.

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James, Les, Bill, Eileen and Chris (after all the cake had been eaten)
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Around 11:30am we left the Wharf at Market Harborough to make our way towards Leicester.   We waved our farewells to nb’s ‘Eleventh Heaven’ and ‘New Dawn’ – a brilliant, quality time we had with them on Sunday evening / Monday morning – thanks again guys!
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We stopped at Debdale Wharf for fuel and after that we soon came upon Saddington Tunnel.  There was more room than the picture appears to give but this Leicester Section needs some attention soon.  We moored for the night just before the start of the locks at bridge 74.
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Leaving at 10am this morning the weather was much better. Dry all day with even the odd spot of sunshine, we had 12 locks which would take us down to Kilby Bridge.  Doug got out his trusty, rusty foldaway bike for the day to make the job a bit easier.  The second lock is rather romantically called Gas Pipe Lock. I wonder why?
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You just can’t get the crew these days!
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Following hard on the heals of the wonderful Hawthorn blossom this year are the yellow water iris. Dotted in large clumps along the canal they present a real treat.
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Quite a few of the lock gates would not open wide enough to get out through one gate but this one was the worst.  In each case it was something under the gate and not debris floating behind it.
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Lunch in the lock.  We weren’t holding anyone up as there was no one around – we felt quite lonely today.
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The Leicester section of the canal system was closed due to lack of water about a month ago!  Today it was flowing over the top of the gates.
We arrived at Kilby Bridge about 2:30’sh to find the moorings virtually deserted.  We moored up and took a walk into Wigston (about 2 miles to the town centre).  On our return Maureen and Roger on nb ‘Ramyshome’  had moored up behind us. We’d caught up with them in Market Harborough and agreed to team up with each other to travel through the Leicester locks tomorrow.

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