Last night we moored above Foxton Locks, having made our way through late in the day. As I mentioned yesterday, we had 20 miles of lock free cruising today on the summit level, before reaching the locks at Watford. So no locks, but glorious remote countryside and two tunnels at Husbands Bosworth and Crick.

The summit level of the Leicester Line spends most of its time winding its way through rounded hills. But when there is no way round, it goes straight through. Some people don’t like tunnels. But I don’t mind them. But I have to admit, the tunnels that allow two way traffic can be more challenging, especially when the boats coming the other way have their headlights set straight ahead. It’s like full beam headlights that take 5 minutes to go past. Leaves spots before your eyes. 

This is really a wonderful part of the canal network. Quiet stretches punctuated by tunnels and bookended by two interesting and remarkable pieces of canal engineering.

Our final goal of the day was the flight at Watford. There are 7 locks here, with 4 in the middle forming another staircase.

As we arrived there were 2 other boats waiting. We joined the end of the queue, but we soon found out that the flight had just been closed because a gate paddle on the bottom lock had just broken. The lock keeper let us know that a crew was on the way but that it would take at least 2 hours to fix. We went to have a look, and the problem was obvious, spot the difference!

We decided to back away from the locks and get our dinner whilst we waited. The locks are right by the M1. It was possible the fix was going to take longer so, if we were going to have to spend some time there, being right under the roaring traffic wasn’t a pleasant prospect. Reversing a narrowboat can be “fun”. You can’t really steer going astern. You have to use pulses of forward throttle to point the boat in the right direction, whilst still making progress going backwards.

We moored up, got on with dinner preparations and then got the message that the lock was fixed! But of course by the time we finished eating, it had started to really rain. So this is where we stay for the night. We’ll just have to ignore the roaring sound of the M1.