Friday, September 29, 2017

Autumn Soddit Cruise 2017

Friday 29th September

We arrived at Jannock on Friday evening, dumped our clobber on board and headed up to the Braunston Frier to get our supper of cod and chips – excellent! Then back to the boat for 4 games of Soddit before retiring to bed.

Saturday 30th September

We cast off and headed for Hillmorton at about 11am after breakfast and a protracted session of maggot drowning. As we approached Barby we found a long procession of Southbound boats headed by Brian aboard Autarky. It appears that they were all held up because somebody had fallen into the canal and caused a queue to build up whilst being rescued.

On to Hillmorton where we moored above the locks for lunch and more fishing. Whilst the latter was happening I changed the gearbox oil on the box. I found that the oil cooler for the gearbox must have sprung a leak as there was evidence of water in the gearbox, the oil was a white emulsion rather than clear. This means I’ll have to do it again once we are back in the marina when I’ll have to fix or replace the oil cooler.

Through Hillmorton locks with a lot of traffic coming the other way. We stopped at the water point below the locks to refill the tank and it started to rain. We thought we’d be clever and stand under the oak tree to keep dry but the tap was so slow that the rain penetrated the leaves and we had to deploy an umbrella before it was full.

Once full, we continued on to moor alongside the golf course for the night. More games of Soddit played before hitting the sack at midnight,

Sunday 1st October

A short run through Rugby accompanied by rousing music through Newbold tunnel provided by Brian running the boat stereo at setting 11. We moored up in the cutting just before the entrance to Brinklow marina (No Fishing allowed within) and I fetched the car from Braunston whilst they fished.

Once I was back, we moved Jannock into the marina, tidied up and went home once Brian and Ian had fed the resident Carp with all our left-over bread.

Graham

No comments: