Off To Braunston. 3 Locks.

Not again!!!.............. and a bad tea break.

Awaking this morning we found the canal frozen over once again!!
This then instigated comments along the lines of.................Not again! and how much longer is this going on for?
But all was well by nine o'clock as the first hire boat came through and opened the canal again.








We waited until the sun came through and then set off.







Hillmorton was busy when we arrived with a boatful of trainees being shown the ropes. Only one side of the paired locks was open as BW were using one to lower the level in the pound (area between locks) above to work on the bank.
The thing that they stupidly did was to forget that the paddles and gates were open when they disappeared for a tea break.







This more or less drained the pound while we were in it. Bouncing along the bottom again brought back memories of trying to reach the Standedge Tunnel.

We got through and back to the ice when the tea break was over and the working crew realised what they had done.

They were dashing about opening and closing paddles trying to refill the drained pound. This action just drained the pound above the next lock. Its a good job there are only three locks in the rise here or this could have snowballed onwards.

We had a great trip for the rest of the day and have ended up back at Braunston.

There are still boats here who were stuck in the ice all those weeks ago. Maybe they have been away and ended up here again like ourselves?

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Until next time...........................

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