Jan had another of her very early morning starts…. and then so did I when she realised there was no 240v shore power to Waiouru. I quickly worked out my groping in the electrical cabinet last night had resulted in me turning off the main switch rather than the switch for the calorifier immersion heater.
The plan was to leave at 9.30 but the mains water pressure was so low it took almost an hour to fill our half empty water tank. As we were completing final preparations to move a familiar figure was seen removing some of the bunting from the Saltisford Trust weekend.
Yes it’s Keith Lodge from nb Hadar. He wandered over and we had a brief chat before moving off. We passed Hadar further down the arm and Jo popped her head out the side hatch to say good bye.
Obviously we picked the wrong day to go up the Hatton Flight. The light drizzle got progressively worse eventually resulting in heavy showers just prior to us mooring at the top. We were very fortunate to pair up with Quentin & Ruth from nb The Answer. Only two of the locks were in our favour and whilst we passed two boats going down this didn’t help us much as there was a boat ahead.
Four days ago I spent 2½ hours assisting Les & Jaq on nb Valerie up the flight. On that occasion almost every lock was in our favour and it was a sunny day.
Today it looked like this
With nearly all the locks against us it took an extra hour going up the flight today. Quentin and Ruth decided to pull over and have a late lunch at the top whilst we decided to continue on another kilometre eventually mooring near Hatton Railway Station.
Ruth & Quentin on nb The Answer.
As you can see, there was a brief pause with the rain before it decided to hammer down. Jan started the Hurricane as soon as we moored. Mostly this was done to dry the wet laundry from the load of washing she did before we departed. If the weather is the same tomorrow we won’t be going anywhere!
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