Mission Accomplished
I woke at half past six to discover that Sue had been awake for ages and was now getting dressed. I got up too and we were ready to tackle the locks by ten to seven. Not only were we first up the flight, all the locks were our way with the result that we were leaving the top lock twenty minutes later. We met a few oncoming boats near the Hungry Horse pub but other than that we enjoyed a nice cruise in the early sunshine. Sue had a shower and then while pottering around in the kitchen, produced a couple of breakfast rolls stuffed with bacon and sausage – just the job for a hungry steerer!
A little bit of congestion at Willoughby called for a bit of deft manouvering but we all got where we wanted to go. There was a similar encounter by the services near Braunston turn but again it all worked out in the end. We tied up opposite the Boathouse and walked to the marina where we checked out our new berth. After returning to Caxton we drove back along the cut and under the cast iron bridge that spans the marina entrance. There are currently a lot of boats moored here making it almost impossible to turn into the main area and as a result I managed to clip the end of the dockside with Caxton’s bow. Ah, well if it hadn’t been that it would have been one of the other boats! Anyway, we made our way into the second basin and reversed on to the berth. We drove to Midland Chandlers where we bought a few bits and pieces and after we returned to the marina we carried the two bags of stuff that had lain in the car since we left it there almost two weeks ago. After that it was a bit of the usual stuff, fill the water and empty the cassette as well as some new stuff, putting the canvas covers on the cratch, the houdini hatches and over the back deck.
As we drove out of the car park we realised that this was the end of our adventure, we had completed the mission that we started on May 6th and Caxton was safely ensconsed in Braunston.