A Welcome Coffee and Bacon Sandwich in the Morning.

 Thursday 3rd June 2021 near Kirtlington.

We had promised to be off the service bay before the boatyard opened, so we set off at 8:00. Sadly, this meant that we missed Simon, who doesn't start until later.

During lockdown, Simon and Matt had turned an old horsebox into "The Brew Box", serving excellent coffee and a cracking bacon sandwich in the Marina. It opened before we left so we were able to sample its wares - and very good they were too!

These looked like wild roses but are, in fact, pink hawthorn. Beautiful!

Somerton Deep Lock is...  DEEP! It is a long way down.

We were very happy to see that almost all the lift bridges were left in the up position. This one was the exception and Mel and Peter kindly opened it for us.

As the Oxford Canal is a narrow canal and we have two boats, we have been doing alternate locks like leap frogging, so the first boat through a lock goes on ahead and sets the next lock for the following boat which, when it catches up, goes straight into the next lock and then goes ahead to set the next lock. This system worked very well and we were able to go through lock flights very quickly.

Today: 9 miles, 5 locks and 4.5 hours.

Trip: 115 miles, 55 locks and 51.8 hours.