We had another day off yesterday, for no other reason than we could, so we did! We had booked a table at the Wharf Inn for Sunday lunch so after a lazy start, we got up and dressed and eventually made our way along the towpath to the pub and had a fabulous roast dinner each. The rest of the afternoon was spent just lazing around until it was time for bed.

This morning was a different story, we were awake early and moved on to the water point for seven o’clock where we brimmed the tank before setting off half an hour later. The weather was already amazing, blue skies and blazing sun with only a slight breeze to keep matters cool. The crossing of the summit on the Oxford is a bit of a chore as far as I am concerned and today was no exception. One overgrown blind corner follows another and there’s bugger all to see in between, making for a tedious passage to Marston Doles and the top of the Napton flight.

We made steady progress down, meeting boats at most of the nine locks so it all seemed very pleasant in the August sunshine.

The last couple of locks at Napton

With a bit of collaboration with the volunteer lock keepers, Sue managed to ensure that the elsan mooring was free for us as we left the bottom lock. It took us four minutes to pull over and empty two cassettes and be on our way again – the boating equivalent of a formula 1 pit stop. We rounded the corner and found a mooring straight away so we had no choice but to tie up and head to the Folly Inn again for lunch.

Today’s mooring

After lunch we went our separate ways, I wandered up to the village shop in Napton while Sue bought an ice cream from the Folly Inn shop for the kind lock keeper who had looked after us on the way down.

We’ve been leapfrogging nb Indigo Dream for the last couple of days and today was no exception.

Indigo Dream

Another one dives into the jungle

All that remained was for us to be entertained by the numerous boats which failed to take the bend behind us.