Goodbye Braunston

Our short rest over, we pulled pins and have left Braunston making our way to the Ashby Canal.

Braunston sunset

We said our goodbyes to 'Old Friends', Matty, our first swan family and the very raucous and persistent ducks :)

Ducks come 'running' whenever the hatch is opened

Cheers Matty :)

Goodbye for now Old Friends

The canal was very busy this morning, we counted 40 boats that passed us before we stopped at Rugby.  A fair number of the boats were support craft for some sponsored walkers making their way from Rugby to Twickenham.

A boat for Caro :)

Exiting Hillmorton Top Lock

Coming up to Hillmorton Bottom Lock

Field patterns on the way to Rugby

and again

First Moorhen chick that I have managed to photograph

Shopping in Rugby:
I was after some additional knitting needles as the circular wrap that I am knitting will not fit on the needles that I already have, so another 2 are required.  Well with the usual issues of shopping in the UK, you can find whatever you want on the internet and have it delivered, but not to a boat.  Once more finding what I want/need in an actual shop that I can walk into is like finding a needle in a haystack ('scuse the pun :) )  Well walk we did as I found 2 supposed shops in the yellow pages.  After walking for almost an hour we finally arrived at the first shop. IT's website says it  stocks knitting supplies but that was a total waste of time, IT DIDN'T.  On to the next shop another 20 minutes further away, WAS CLOSED when we got there at 3:25pm. Sign said it closes at 3:30pm on a Saturday! Liar!! And then we still needed to walk back to the boat :(  I was too tired to see much of Rugby town center, but we did walk pass the Webb Ellis statue and the Rugby Museum. I was surprised that Andrew did not want to go into it to have a look.  I would have happily sat down and waited :)  and I took no photo's :(   In the end we must have walk at least 4 miles!


We did get some other items that we needed on our travels and eventually made it back to the boat at 5:30.

We were moored up just ahead of nb Waiouru, fellow Kiwi's. It looked like they were not in but on reading their blog this evening, they commented on the same 2 hire boaters we saw as we were leaving to go into town.  We should probably have knocked to see if they were there. It would have been good to have a chat with some folk from way down under :)  Oh well.

We were going to stock up at the large Tesco's close by but I was shattered at this point and not keen to walk a step further. Andrew was not overly happy with the mooring spot we had in Rugby, so once more we pulled pins and have moved on another hour and half to a lovely rural spot.  Just have the birds to listen to :)

North Oxford canal

Rape seed fields give lovely colour to the landscape