Sunday 19th July 2020
This is the BIG day our first trip out on RoJo, I know we went for a pre purchase trip but this was very different - our very first trip on our very first narrowboat, coo exciting. We had hired an instructor for the day - Paul Smith - to make things easier
First of course we had to get out of our very tight berth which with Paul’s expert guidance we easily achieved, how we will get on next time when we are alone goodness only knows but after some practice reversing into standard marina berths we set off, out of the quite tight marina entrance and on to Calcutt Bottom Lock, the first in a flight of three wide locks. Much to our instructors dismay there was another boat going up so we shared the locks which meant the two boats held each other in place while the locks were filling and the large crew on the other boat carried out all of the heavy gate work.
Just a few furlongs (what a lovely, old fashioned word. A furlong is equivalent to 1/8th of a mile) down the cut we came to Napton Junction, where the Grand Union Canal and the Oxford Canal become one for a while. We turn left towards Braunston where we are surprised at the huge volume of traffic (mainly hire boats), nothing like the M1 of course but at the first pinch point or narrow part of the canal we had to wait for five boats to come through before we could continue. The learning curve we were trying to climb was very steep but soon after 10.30 we decided to moor in a very pleasant spot for tea and bickies. Coming alongside to mooring for our tea break I fell off that curve “ . . a complete cock . . .” was, I think, the term used, and so, very soon after starting off again instructor Paul suggested I might like to try again. That done to his satisfaction we continued on our way to Braunston.
What a contrast to the last time we had done this journey, then it was on Pauls 62’ beauty NB Orient with its wonderful sounding vintage engine, the canal was deserted, the rain was persiting down and the wind howling through the leafless trees.
Today could not have been more different the canal was teaming with wildlife and seemed half the width with abundant growth on both sides containing a host of beautiful wild plants and flowers, the birds were singing and all was well with our small slow world.
Arriving at Braunston the next problem was to turn around in the marina entrance, this I achieved fairly easily (I did of course have expert tuition) and a little way down the canal we moored for lunch, this time the coming alongside went well, particularly gratifying as there were lots of gongoozelers (boat watchers) about. After a splendid lunch we continued our way back towards Calcutt making a short detour to Midland Chandlers, sadly they were closed but instructor Paul went mainly to force me to reverse up the Oxford canal in order to get back on the Oxford/Grand Union canal - a hard task master 😀 😀 😀 😀.
Returning towards Calcutt Boats it seemed as if everyone had moored up, there were virtually no boats moving, what a contrast to this morning. Eventually arriving back at Calcutt we needed to negotiate the three locks to reach the marina entrance, it was my first time alone on the boat. The first two went quite well but I managed to give the third a bit of a clout but all told not bad. The last problem was getting back into our ultra tight berth, I gave up and would like to say Paul also had trouble but no, he put it back without pause or hesitation. A great first trip.