Hail to the Hive!

After 2 lovely chilled and lazy weeks it was finally time to leave Kilby Bridge and set off towards Foxton. We did give it a lovely send off though. A friend who used to live near us in the Philippines dropped by and we made merry with wine, cider, beers and plenty of food. Such a nice end to a relaxing stay at Kilby Bridge moorings..

Our friend 'Kate " lives in a camper van and has visited us before and is sorely tempted to switch to a floating nomadic way of life. I think she'd enjoy it.

We planned to travel over 2 days the 9 miles and 12 locks to Foxton Locks where we plan to spend a week at the bottom of the flight and a week at the top.

With a slighly fuzzy head I awoke to a stupendously glorious English Summer day. Wow! this is a beautiful stretch of canal so it's going to be a proper treat to chug our way through it in the bright warm sunshine and blue skies.

There are a lot of locks though, which can be hard work in the heat. But there's no rush. Easy does it.

And the lock queen herself @millycf1976 knows what she's doing. SLow, safe and methodical.

I see Bumble Bee Lock has a new sign, I think it gets stolen quite a lot as it wasn't there on our previous trip through. Possibly taken by Transformers fans, who knows?

We also have company coming through the locks as our neighbouring boat in Kilby is also joining us for the trip. As the locks on the Leicester arm of the Grand Union are wide locks 2 narrowboats may pass at the same time. I like going through 2 abreast as you've always got someone to chat to as the lock fills up.

I did mention there were a lot of locks right? We will be climbing all the way up and then even later in a few weeks climbing further still up the 10 lock flight at Foxton.

One tunnel also to pass though, the Saddington Tunnel. Not a long one but nice and cool in here. A respite from the heat of the summer sun.

Like being in a cooler.

We also passed a guy we've met before who knows all the swan families in the area, I call him 'Vinny the Swan Whisperer' as he's been looking out for all the swan families along this stretch of Leicester Canal for years. I am assuming he left this note on the lock warning about the rival swan families. They are very territorial!

And they will fight!

Nosy cows also. I'd lose a staring contest with this one for sure.

Remembered my hat for a change as I burnt my head top cruising during the last blast of hear we had. Once bitten and all that jazz.

This was our mooring spot after day 1. Not too shabby eh?

I took a little morning stroll on the moring of day 2 as I wanted to get some shots of the area. Soooo nice.

Waking up in areas like this is what makes boating so special.

But onwards we go, Foxton Bound!

We had a fairly lateish start, about 10:30 ish as we are just trying to do 4 hour days. It's a chilled way to do it and breaks up the locks. There's no massive hurry either. Why would ya?

we pass a few more locks and meander through more superb Leicestershire countryside

some of which is lovely and cool, shaded by a canopy of trees

and then we finally arive at the bottom of the Foxton Locks flight. That's not for today though, that'll keep until next week 😁.

I plan to do a coffee and Ice Cream Post from there tomorrow as when we've passed through previously I've spied people with their drinks, pasties and ice creams and drooled at the thought of it. So tomorrow I will rectify this and put a spotlight on the place itself!

See you all tomorrow hopefully 😉