Saturday 23rd August

Awoke to blue skies and had an easy passage down the Napton locks as there were quite a few other boaters with large crews to work the locks. We went to the village shop and by the time we returned to the wharf there were lots more people and boats about. Moving them all around the water points and onto lock moorings was a challenge. Luckily we had moored round the corner.

The pub at the bottom of the Napton Flight is called The Folly. We remembered it from 2009 when we were considering moving to this area and visited the canal one day and had lunch there. We thought we would do so again so we spent much longer here than we had planned. 

As we moored after the locks we realised that we were behind a boat called Dolly Blue with a single guy called Steve. Jon had helped him through locks on the Macclesfield canal a year ago and had we been a couple of days earlier Jon could have found himself called into action again!

The windmill for which Napton on the Hill is famous was difficult to see but as we headed away from the village there was a good view.

Onto Braunston Junction where, on Tuesday 8th we had set off down the Grand Union Canal for London. Our loop was now complete and we will be retracing the miles for the next few days as we return to the Marina at Willington.

I have never seen so many different colours of cows in the same field!

As you pass boats you always say hello to anyone sitting at the front and then to the helmsman at the back. We greeted the lady at the front but when the stern passed it was steering itself! We wonder if they had rigged up some sort of control so that it can be driven from inside. We kept looking back but no one appeared and it kept quite a straight course. Very strange.