Use it or lose it!

By late yesterday my back was allowing me to have brief periods of waddling around the boat like a duck.  Standing upright was a challenge but if you don’t use it you lose it so I managed to get off Waiouru and go for a short local walk.  My initial posture was like a hunched over 92 year old but after 20 minutes I could walk upright.

I walked to Easenhall Lane Bridge and took a photo back towards our mooring.

 

The bridge has a number of disc shaped securing anchor points on each side.  The angle of the shaft suggests they don’t pass completely through the bridge structure to join with a disc on the opposite side

Whilst the fitting of the discs was interesting it was the rectangular black box that puzzled me.  It wasn’t until examined them more closely that I noticed the silhouette cut into the front panel.

Bat boxes!

Walking back past Waiouru I noticed two boats with familiar names.

nb Jannock

nb Mr David.  Brenda makes hand made greeting cards from the boat.

By now my back was telling me it was time for a rest.  A better night’s sleep followed although I woke at the same time as Jan but “played possum” for 30 minutes in the vain hope of tea in bed <just joking>.

We decided to move and headed north towards Hawkesbury Junction.  The large orange cylindrical marker buoys have been here since we first boated this way in 2005.

They mark the ends of cut trees which have fallen across the canal.  I assume they haven’t been cut back further or removed in the hope the roots will stabilize the bank.

Jan opened the pedestrian swing bridge at Rose Narrowboats and we decided against stopping on the water point immediately beyond as the edge is shallow and the pressure isn’t that great.

There is a very short arm just before Les Wilson Narrowboats.  I remember a tracked excavator working here when we passed in 2005 and it’s now a private mooring.

As we turned the bend at Bridge 9 a boater coming from the opposite direction called out advising a CRT work boat was off its mooring ahead of us.

My back unfortunately precluded us from stopping and securing the boat.  It had drifted to the opposite side of the canal and all three mooring ropes were in the water.  Only one of the original pins was still in the ground and that was bent.

Speeding boats.  We’ve noticed quite a few in the last week.

To our surprise there was only one boat on the 7 Day moorings before the stop lock at Sutton Stop when we arrived at 11.30.  Of course that situation had changed by 4pm.  We had a very pleasant lunch in The Greyhound.  It wasn’t cheap, but it was tasty.  Jan chose the chicken whilst I opted for the 3 pies.

After lunch I decided to walk to the large Tesco next to the Ricoh Arena (use it or lose it).  Only a 6km round trip but it did loosen up the back.  Meanwhile Jan had noticed a passing boat with an obvious Australian connection.