My Gipsy Blood? Continuing up the Oxford Canal

Monday, 29 September 2008 18:13

There is an anecdotal story that one of my ancestors was a Gipsy! Is this the reason why I get the urge to move on after about 2 or 3 days!? I suppose we are "Water Gipsys" in one sense.

So yes - we are on the move again after a very pleasant weekend in Shipton on Cherwell. A nice mooring, visits from friends and John's cousin Steve and his wife, Ellen and a restful few days. There is something good about not moving at weekends as we watch all the hire boats and weekend boaters rush by! We avoid the queues for locks and the hassle of finding a mooring on Saturdays and Sundays!

A sunny morning with a light breeze encouraged us into an earlyish start (for us) and our first lock was the interestingly shaped Shipton Weir lock - a diamond shaped lock with an unusual bridge just before. The secret to these locks is to nudge into the top/bottom gate and keep the boat gently in forward gear. Thus the boat stays in the middle of the lock! It is then straighforward - literally - to get out again!

The River Cherwell then joins the canal through a very bendy section and hives off again under a wrought iron bridge as the canal turns sharp right into the lock landing for Bakers Lock (40). Passing the Rock of Gilbraltar pub we entered a wooded section, stopping off at Enslow Wharf for gas. By the number of boats with a squiggle and KG on the sides it was not difficult to deduce who builds boats here!

The lift bridges through this section are easy to operate and one (215) is permanently up. At Pigeon lock we were caught up by another boat who appeared at the next two locks, Northbrook and Dashwood, just as we left the lock. They were set for us but obviously not for them!

Dashwood was the deepest lock so far at 9 foot 3 inches, but the deepest is to come tomorrow. After Dashwood and approaching Lower Heyford, there are a lot of boats moored. We pulled in just before Heyford Wharf bridge for water, right alongside Heyford station.

The Hotel Boats Duke and Duchess soon pulled in behind us to wait for the tap. We finished and reversed around them so they could pull up to the tap and then we moored to go across the bridge to have a nose in Oxfordshire Narrowboats.

They have a large fleet of hire boats, day boats and a small shop. The livery of the hire boats is very smart and they look good inside too. The shop has a limited stock of staple groceries and some chandlery bits and pieces.

We set off again as it clouded over and decided to try for an overnight mooring slightly away from the railway line that is close to the canal on this section. We passed through Mill Lift Bridge. A glance east and we saw a little of the pretty Little Heyford village and to the west the river Cherwell runs parallel with the canal.

It was not very long before we found a lovely mooring - my favourite type - seemingly away from everything, by a gap in the trees and with the river just a few feet away on our port side. As John remarked, let's hope we do not have 6 inches of rain in the night as then the two water courses would become one!

Oh and boo hoo - no photos on the blog tonight, It is the end of the month and we have only a weeny bit of our 5 gigs left, also we only have 2G here, so the pics we took today will be "up" in a couple of days!

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