A good walk and the battery monitor installation is finished

The day started cool with a slight wind but I decided to go for the planned walk anyway.  It was a good decision as there were some heavy showers after my return.
The plan was to walk five sections of footpath not on the Open Street Map.  It was a circular route because I also wanted to visit the church and Tower in Gumley.

Footpaths not previous on the OSM now recorded and uploaded.
The total length of the walk was just over 12.5km which isn’t very far.  I guess I’ll need another walk in a few days to get some additional miles under my feet.

The route is in red and the canal in purple and green
Much of the countryside is coloured bright yellow from the paddocks fields meadows of ripening Rape.  However the following meadow was covered in buttercups.  It’s been many years since we last saw buttercups.  They grown in NZ but I can’t recall seeing any in Australia.

I’d reached the end of the sections I’d planned to record when I arrived at point A marked on the map above.  This is where I discovered the footpath passed under the canal.  You have to wonder whether boaters realise they are passing over the footpath.

From this point onwards all the footpaths were already marked on the map.  When I arrived at point B (map above) there was a sluice with a very familiar looking mechanism located beside the junction of the footpaths.  The water course looked like it was running between Saddington Reservoir (point C) and the canal.  I checked on my return to Waiouru and the reservoir was built in 1802 to feed the canal!  A walk up to Smeeton Hill (515ft) provided a good view of the reservoir and surrounding countryside.

Saddington Reservoir

Looking SE towards Foxton Locks and Market Harborough
I eventually arrived at the northern aspect of St Helen’s of Gumley church.  Wikipedia has some interesting information about Gumley <click the link above>.  The village was first mentioned in 749AD although I would doubt any of the buildings date from this period.

The church was apparently built in the 14th century but subsequently modernized in 1874.  Gumley Hall was demolished in 1960 but the Tower House remains.  It was the water tower for the Hall and the existing surrounding building used to be the stables.

The weather vane on the top of the tower had 1870 on it and I was somewhat dubious about the date.

However a photo and information in Panoramio states the Tower House was constructed in 1870.  I thought it looked much newer!
In the afternoon a fellow boater kindly lent me his hole saw (thanks John) which enabled me to finally complete the installation of the Victron BMV600.

Now the BMV600 is easy to monitor I’ve begun to watch the current flowing in and out of the domestic battery bank.  The first thing I’ve noticed is the Smartgauge isn’t 100% accurate.  Two hours after the Smartgauge reported 100% the batteries were still accepting 10-12 amps of charge.  A further two hours later they were accepting 8 amps. This means when the Smartgauge is first reporting the batteries are 100% charged they are actually only 90-95% charged.  We need to use the generator or shore-power to complete the ‘Float’ stage to enable the BMV600 to be synchronised.  That’s not going to occur during the next few days.