Scott and Family Help Us Down Foxton Locks.

Saturday 29th June 2019 at Foxton Locks.
A misty start to the morning, with no indication of the sweltering day which was to follow.

A little later, in clear blue skies, we cruised the three miles to the top of Foxton Locks and took our place in the queue of boats waiting to go down.

R walked ahead to register with the lock keeper - boats are taken through the locks in the order in which they register, not the order in which they arrive - so it is important to find the lock keeper as soon as you arrive.

We were about number seven on the list and, when the lock keeper opened up at 10:00am, the volunteers took five boats down, which left us as number two. Because Foxton is a staircase of ten locks, you can't pass in the middle, so they take a batch down and then a batch up.

So, despite having arrived at 9:30, we didn't start down until 1:00pm. Looking on the bright side, it gave M time to have a sausage bap in the café and for R to have a Magnum! It was still fairly quiet at the flight; the flocks of "gongoozlers" hadn't yet started to arrive.

Just before we started down, we were very pleased to see Scott, Paula and Lachlan coming up the hill to meet us.

Unfortunately, Amelia, their daughter, wasn't feeling well, so had stayed at home. Scott and Paula stayed on MM with R as we started to descend through the locks. Although Scott and Paula have been on board before, this was the first time that they had gone down through locks whilst on board.

M was very amused when the rather over-enthusiastic C&RT lady volunteer insisted on showing M the step by step process of going through a lock, as if describing it to a novice. M thought it better not to tell her that she had done more than 3,000 locks and just nodded and smiled! Lachlan joined M on lock wheeling duties and took to it like a duck to water.

By the bottom lock, just an hour later, Lachlan had worked up quite a sweat in the 33deg heat, so he really deserved his reward, which was a very large burger in the Foxton Locks Inn, where we all had lunch. Great chips!

Directly alongside the Inn is a 24 hour mooring space and we were lucky enough to get MM in there. Any slight reservations about the mooring possibly being a bit noisy in the evening proved to be unfounded. Although the Inn was busy with people enjoying themselves well into the evening, they were very quiet.
We decided to reward ourselves for the efforts of the day with a pair of rhubarb gin and tonics (doubles, no less!), which we sat and sipped on MM's stern. Very relaxing!

A very dramatic and potentially stormy sky led to a few spots of rain, but it was still a lovely evening.

We walked across the bridge to photograph MM in the evening light.  A super day.

Today: 3 miles, 10 locks and 2.0 hours.
Trip: 124 miles, 52 locks and 67.0 hours.