Gate Cemetery

Back to some cold weather this morning with ice on the Houdini’s and a frost on the ground.  There was a mist on the water as dawn broke.

We slipped the rings around 10am and headed south towards Knowle Locks.  A short distance from the mooring we came upon a canal side piece of land CRT had converted into a gate cemetery.

Nothing mysterious about the storage and recycling of old lock gates.  It was the other items on the site we found puzzling.

Fridges, freezers and old tyres.  None of which looked like they had been recovered from the canal?

We stopped at the top of Knowle Locks (5) to top up the water tank and dump our rubbish.  The water pressure here is rather poor and two boats at the bottom locks almost made it to the top before Waiouru’s tank was full.

The day took a turn for the worse when we picked up something around the prop exiting the top lock.  With little propulsion or steerage it took some time to get Waiouru into the 2nd lock chamber.  One of us would need to strip down to a T-shirt and thrust their arms into the icy water.  There being no volunteers, I did the deed finding the prop encased in a heavy yellow plastic empty coal bag.  I couldn’t pull it free and had to revert to using the bread knife.  Hands were shaking and teeth chattering by the time it had been removed.  I took it back to the CRT rubbish bins by the top lock and couldn’t help noticing a number of the boats moored above the locks had yellow plastic bags of coal on their roofs.  

The rest of the flight went rather well with some winding and gate pushing going a long way to warming me up.

It will now be double locks all the way to Wigram’s Turn.

Moored below the locks for winter was a boat we’ve previously seen on a number of occasions.

Someone had also been busy laying down the hedge adjacent to the moorings.

We’ve not seen this done in NZ or Australia.  One assumes it thickens and strengthens the hedge whilst also avoiding the need to remove and dispose of the cuttings.

Jan took over steering for awhile, which enabled me to warm up by drinking the hot chocolate she had made. 

We decided to continue cruising until 2.30pm and moor before the forecast 3pm rain.  Towards the end of the cruise Jan noticed an attractive canal side house.

Fortunately we reached Kingswood Junction at 2.30pm finding plenty of vacant moorings.  Thirty minutes later it started to rain.