A Big Boating Adventure - Part Two

 Having rushed down through Staffordshire and Worcestershire, the weather was so windy and wet on our first day at Braunston that we did no boating at all.  Our humans did some jobs inside the boat while we bears gathered round and Hanley read one of Grizzly's books to us.

 

But the next morning was bright, if still a bit breezy, so we had our porridge, before the boats set off up the Braunston locks together, because the Grand Union Canal has double locks that two boats can share.

 

At the top of the flight of six locks is a long tunnel, which is wide enough for two boats to pass, although we were quite glad not to meet any boats coming the other way.  Soon afterwards, we reached the junction where the canal forks and one route goes to Leicester, which is the way I travelled home in 2017.

Then we had to work down through six big locks at Long Buckby, close to the West Coast Main Line and the M1 motorway.  I remembered sharing these with another boat on our journey up them in 2017, as the crew included a very little human cub being carried in a sling on the dad's chest while he was steering!

 

Because it was still breezy, we stayed in the cratch all day watching the humans working the locks and waving to Cameo and Tilly, the two doggies who live on the boat we were travelling with.  Although we were now onto a part of the Grand Union Canal I had travelled in the opposite direction, it looks quite different going south.

The next day, we reached another big tunnel at Blisworth, which I could remember going through with Polar and Grizzly in 2017.  Although it might not look like it in the picture, it is also wide enough for two narrowboats to pass each other, but we didn't meet any boats coming the other way.

South of Blisworth Tunnel is Stoke Bruerne, where there is the National Waterways Museum, but also another flight of big locks.  Fortunately, there are nice moorings just below the first lock, so our humans stopped there for the night, and Hanley and Huddlesford went with them to have dinner and to test Grizzly's beer in the pub.

The following day, we set off towards Cosgrove and Milton Keynes, though some more lovely countryside.  We had heard there might be delays due to a fallen tree, but it had been cleared by the time we reached it and we had another good day afloat before we picked a nice spot to moor for the night.

The next day was calm enough for bears on the roof, at last, so Hanley and I put on our life jackets and sat out in the sunshine.  We were pleased to see that there were lots of people using the towpath for walking, jogging and cycling in Milton Keynes, and there were plenty of other boats about too.

We had travelled quite a long way with no locks, until we reached Fenny Stratford, where there is a fairly shallow lock with a swing bridge over the top, which you have to move before you can use the lock.

The following day was sunny and calm too, so all four of us went up on the roof!  It was a bit of a squeeze in our roof basket, but we were good bears and didn't fidget.  

There were several more locks to work through that day, as we had started climbing towards the summit at Tring, and at one of them we had a big surprise.

Just across the canal from a lock with a pretty cottage and a blossom tree, a huge building was being constructed.  It looked like a medieval abbey.  Security people on the bridge were stopping people getting too close, because it was all part of a film set!

Just a little further down the canal we could see more strange buildings and huge lights on cranes.  Some ladies walking along the towpath said they had heard the film is of a musical called "Wicked" about the witches from the Wizard of Oz story.  There were photographers with vey long lenses watching from the towpath, probably hoping to catch a glimpse of film stars.

We had a better view than them from the roof of the boat, but of course we didn't have such complicated camera equipment to take our photos, and we didn't see anyone famous.  We would have loved to explore the strange little town  in the field, but will just have to wait until the film is released for a closer look.

We had much further still to go, but I will you tell you more about the next stage of our journey in my next post.