Now at Cropredy

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes she shall have music wherever she goes!

A walk last night took me to Banbury Cross as our good friend Trevor from Adelaide, South Australia had mentioned it.

I doubt it’s the original cross!

The Old Wine house looked rather interesting

On the way back to Waiouru I passed Banbury Lock (having already come up it in the boat) and noticed the carved date in the stonework.

Only slightly older than me!

Unfortunately there was no time to visit the historic Tooley’s Drydock.

We were up at 6.00am am pottering around waiting for the shops to open when we heard the gentle tapping of the duck nibbling the weed off Waiouru’s waterline.  Jan looked out the porthole and was surprised to see they were Australian ducks!  Well, actually the tapping was from a couple of visiting Aussies who had wandered down to the canal and were discussing whether the narrowboats were made of fibreglass……. Hence the tapping!  We had an interesting 30 minute chat with them about canals and narrowboats before heading to the Castle Quay shopping centre and then the high street shops.  Jan found the local 99p shop which was the sum total of our expenditure. 

We then moved off down the canal to find a mooring close to the large Banbury Tesco.  Having missed the first footpath and pedestrian bridge over the canal we eventually stopped almost opposite Tesco.  Except there wasn’t much of a path.  I assembled the folding sack truck whilst Jan collected our day packs.  We took the short (but rough) route to Tesco where we did quite a large shop, including another cheap Tesco brand microwave!  There was so much to carry back we took an easier, but longer, route back to Waiouru.  By then it was noon so we stayed on the mooring for lunch before heading towards Cropredy around 1.00pm

The route was rather rural after leaving Banbury with the locks being well spaced apart.  One lock had an attractive cottage whilst at another the cottage was almost derelict.  Both of us commented that the derelict cottage was probably in that state because it had no vehicle access.

All but one of the locks was in our favour.  Jan had just finished emptying and preparing the lock against us when a boat arrived from the opposite direction.  This afforded Jan the opportunity to have one of those ladies lock side chats.

Today’s cruise has been through some rather attractive countryside.  The weather was warm and sunny with both of us getting slightly red in the face (and not from the hard work!).

Cropredy appeared after 3½ hours and we stopped on the facilities mooring to top up the water tank and dump the rubbish.  No photo because in the flurry of activity we forgot to take one.  However I did remember to take a photo of Cropredy Lock.

One of the potential problems with cruising in the late afternoon is all the good moorings at your destination may be already occupied.  And so it was with us today!  We’re now moored on the northern side of Cropredy just short of the new marina which is currently under construction.

Piles of spoil conceal the hole that’s being created.  The plan for tomorrow is to head off in the morning with the intention of mooring around lunch time.  We’ll also cruise on Friday until lunch time and then stop until after the Bank Holiday weekend.