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Down the southern Grand Union (a new route for us)


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1 hour ago, BWM said:

I'd second the recommendation for the tandoori, excellent food, reasonable prices and a lot of food for your money. Beer in the Boat is excellent, with a great atmosphere in the public bar.

And I'd third it - not only is the food in the "Spice of Bruene" excellent but they are lovely people as well.

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Mention of pubs and food seems to have generated a few responses!

 

Thanks for all the comments - I would dearly love to act upon the several recommendations for The Spice but unfortunately Mrs Lily Rose is not a fan of anything remotely Indian/Asian/spicy (and I am) so that's annoyingly a non-starter. Fish and chips (probably) and a pint in The Navigation is the likely result. 

 

I also forgot to mention that when we had an excellent pint in the Boat on the way south we also picked up a slice of homemade bread pudding for £1 which, I was told, was very good.

 

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36 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

Mention of pubs and food seems to have generated a few responses!

 

Thanks for all the comments - I would dearly love to act upon the several recommendations for The Spice but unfortunately Mrs Lily Rose is not a fan of anything remotely Indian/Asian/spicy (and I am) so that's annoyingly a non-starter. Fish and chips (probably) and a pint in The Navigation is the likely result. 

 

I also forgot to mention that when we had an excellent pint in the Boat on the way south we also picked up a slice of homemade bread pudding for £1 which, I was told, was very good.

 

 I had forgotten about the bread pudding, it was really nice. I believe that the spice have an English menu as well, but haven't tried it..might get you out of trouble!

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5 hours ago, BWM said:

 I had forgotten about the bread pudding, it was really nice. I believe that the spice have an English menu as well, but haven't tried it..might get you out of trouble!

 

I did suggest going in to The Spice as we walked past but got a rather emphatic NO in response. I'm not sure knowing about an English menu would have made any difference though, as I get moaned at for the smell when I cook myself a curry.

 

We ended up in the Navigation and had something from the el cheapo lunchtime menu on the basis that if it wasn't up to much at least we hadn't wasted a lot of dosh. It turned out not too bad at all, two mains, two melt in the middle chocolate puds (large and very nice for £2 each) and one and a half pints of a very tasty 5.1% draught Spartacus ESB (https://www.wbbrew.com/product/spartacus-esb/), all for £20. The mains came, nice and hot, about 15 minutes after ordering and the puds came quickly after the mains were finished. We were in and out in under an hour, probably wouldn't have been like that at the weekend.

 

After lunch I helped (in fairness, the chap from the boat next door did 90% of the work) to rescue a swan that had been in a field, the wrong side of a barbed wire fence, since yesterday morning and seemed to be getting rather stressed. It had apparently forgotten it had the ability to fly! Once we had shepherded it back though two gates and onto the towpath it spotted water the other side of a moored work boat, walked across the boat and, rather inelegantly, jumped/fell into the canal. It took one quick drink and then spotted its mate about a hundred yards away and very quickly half swam/half flew to rejoin it. Concerned locals and CRT people were pleased, having twice failed to get the RSPCA (not sure if they were the right people for the job) to show any interest.

 

After doing Blisworth Tunnel in 40 minutes, meeting three oncoming boats, we ended up moored for the night near bridge 45 with a good view of a field of horses on the offside, something which goes down well with the missus. For the 3rd time in a few days we are moored very close to an 1897 wrought iron (so the information sheet in the side hatch informed me) narrowboat called Gerald.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lily Rose said:

The mains came, nice and hot, about 15 minutes after ordering and the puds came quickly after the mains were finished. We were in and out in under an hour, probably wouldn't have been like that at the weekend.

 

No, you almost certainly wouldn't - not if it was a nice weekend, at least?

 

And if you managed to find a table, you would probably have to clear it yourselves!

1 hour ago, Lily Rose said:

For the 3rd time in a few days we are moored very close to an 1897 wrought iron (so the information sheet in the side hatch informed me) narrowboat called Gerald.

Yes, we saw Gerald several times, finally leaving them behind at Cosgrove.

This is them passing us at Great Linford, on what proved to be a lovely mooring spot.......

 

 

 

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P1010581.JPG

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11 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

No, you almost certainly wouldn't - not if it was a nice weekend, at least?

 

And if you managed to find a table, you would probably have to clear it yourselves!

Yes, we saw Gerald several times, finally leaving them behind at Cosgrove.

This is them passing us at Great Linford, on what proved to be a lovely mooring spot.......

 

 

 

P1010580.JPG

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Cosgrave was, I think, possibly the first place we saw them as we glided past to moor just in front of them for the night.

 

The offside mooring at Great Linford was probably my favourite mooring spot on the whole trip so far, 'twas a pity it was only for lunch. Two spaces, both free when we arrived, one in the open (suits me for solar) and one in the shade of a tree. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the first picture shows Gerald passing the former and the second passing the latter. If so, you were moored opposite where we stopped.

 

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3 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

 If so, you were moored opposite where we stopped.

 

Yes, exactly so, but we found all the temporary mooring space administered by the "Parks" people on the offside in use, so had to opt for the tow-path that evening.

However by the time these pictures were taken next morning the boats had gone, hence them appearing as available.

 

'Tis a lovely spot, but not really quite deep enough either side of the canal for boats on a 3 foot draught, as both ours are.

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2 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

After doing Blisworth Tunnel in 40 minutes

40 minutes? I usually aim for 28!

 

Edited to add:  Did you spot the side shaft?

Edited by adam1uk
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11 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Yes, exactly so, but we found all the temporary mooring space administered by the "Parks" people on the offside in use, so had to opt for the tow-path that evening.

However by the time these pictures were taken next morning the boats had gone, hence them appearing as available.

 

'Tis a lovely spot, but not really quite deep enough either side of the canal for boats on a 3 foot draught, as both ours are.

I've just been looking through your blog (a quick look, I'll have a proper read when I have time) and came across your photos and comments about sharing a lock with a swan and 7 cygnets. We had a very similar experience, apart from the getting stuck bit, at Leighton Buzzard lock a few days ago. That was a pair with 6 cygnets and I too thought it was planned. The adults really seemed to know what they were doing.

 

This evening we fed some weetabix to 6 ducklings accompanied by  a parent. After a while 5 more, seemingly unaccompanied, ducklings arrived. I managed to throw some food further out so they could get some and it was very amusing to watch the first family repeatedly chasing off the second. I expected the adult to do this but not the young as well. Both sets were quite large though so I guess they've already picked up this behaviour from their parents.

 

I'm not sure where your boats are based, or if you are still on them, but I'll be keeping a lookout as we progress. Probably past Stow Hill at some point tomorrow and then up the Buckby flight on Wednesday.

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2 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

After doing Blisworth Tunnel in 40 minutes

 

4 minutes ago, adam1uk said:

40 minutes? I usually aim for 28!

 

28?  Sub 24 is realistic!

 

(But not, I hasten to add, something to persue if anythung is coming the other way, as it was in this case).

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Just now, alan_fincher said:

 

 

28?  Sub 24 is realistic!

 

(But not, I hasten to add, something to persue if anythung is coming the other way, as it was in this case).

28 is a maximum!  When we did it the other day, there was a boat ahead which appeared to be at least half way through, and we caught them up before the end.

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Just now, Lily Rose said:

I'm not sure where your boats are based, or if you are still on them, but I'll be keeping a lookout as we progress. Probably past Stow Hill at some point tomorrow and then up the Buckby flight on Wednesday.

By Stowe Hill you will just have passed them - both have home moorings just before then.

We were planning to be there tomorrow, but now will not be, I think.

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7 minutes ago, adam1uk said:

40 minutes? I usually aim for 28!

 

Edited to add:  Did you spot the side shaft?

I did 35 on the way down, which I was quite pleased with at the time. But not any more. Thanks!

 

Today I knew I was going slower but was quite happy about as I was in no hurry.

 

No, I didn't notice a side shaft. I did put my umbrella up for 5 shafts and went to the left to avoid the one that has a solid torrent coming down on the right when going north.

 

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Just now, Lily Rose said:

No, I didn't notice a side shaft. I did put my umbrella up for 5 shafts and went to the left to avoid the one that has a solid torrent coming down on the right when going north.

 

We call that the horse piss one!

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5 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:


We were planning to be there tomorrow, but now will not be, I think.

 

No offence taken!

Just now, adam1uk said:

We call that the horse piss one!

Must be quite a horse.

 

But I'm no expert, perhaps they do piss like that. 

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From memory the record for the quickest trip through the tunnel set well over 20 year ago is somewhere in the region of 16 minutes, however as I was reminded last year they did have some assistance, BW were running water down the flight so all paddles were open at top lock creating quite a significant flow of water through the tunnel.

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13 hours ago, adam1uk said:

28 is a maximum!  When we did it the other day, there was a boat ahead which appeared to be at least half way through, and we caught them up before the end.

Blisworth tunnel is 3075 yards according to CRT.

 

Google tells me this is just a whisker under 1.75 miles. At a maximum speed of 4mph this is 0.4375 hours which equals 26.25 minutes.

 

Therefore 28 minutes is acceptable but anything under 26.25 minutes must surely result in immediate disqualification.

 

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I make it that (in whole rounded seconds) 26 minutes 13 seconds is legal, anything more is not.
 

But sources can't completely agree the length of the tunnel to the nearest yard - I'm using the more usually quoted 3,076.
 

However I seem to recall that some recent re-measuring of it concluded that it is not exactly the length people have always believed it to be.

I can't find any reference to that now, though.

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6 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

I make it that (in whole rounded seconds) 26 minutes 13 seconds is legal, anything more is not.

 

1 hour ago, adam1uk said:

Or perhaps anything less.

 

Thank goodness for that. I thought for a minute that CRT had imposed minimum speed limits in tunnels. ?

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