Crick's in Sight

Yes, I know, it’s been some time since the last blog, but that’s the way it goes.  Blogging’s not my thing but it’s one way of keeping in touch and letting everyone know that all’s well.

As you can see from the previous blog we were on the K&A,  well we’ve moved on some since then.  We left the mooring shown in the pic and headed straight for the Thames, turned north, moored for the night in Reading before proceeding to Abingdon, where we stayed for a couple of days before heading for Oxford.

We decided to use Duke’s Cut to leave the Thames for the Oxford Canal.  This was the first time we had used this route and was fine until we arrived at Duke’s Cut lock and found that the exit gate would not open fully due to trapped branches etc, between the open gate and the lock wall.  Took some time to clear before we could move on.

  

Safely through we chugged to Thrupp.  By now the weather had changed for the better and the forecast was great.  Thrupp has some excellent moorings and we were lucky to find one that allowed a 7 day stay, and only 100 yds from the well known Boat Inn.  We stayed 4 days; had two excellent walks of around eight miles each, visiting Woodstock close to Blenhiem Palace and discovering the village of Hampton Gay, which though very small, has a really interesting history.

 We are presently moored about a mile south of Cropredy famous for the Battle of Cropredy (1644) and an annual folk festival hosted by Fairport Convention, due to happen in a week or so.

 Tomorrow we are heading for bridge 124, close to Priors Hardwick and the Butcher’s Arms, where we plan to have lunch on Friday. If you read the blog about our trip with Jayne, Carl, Oliver and Tash you will know about our previous visit to this eating place.

 That’s it for now.  Hope to make Braunston for the weekend and meet the engineer on Monday, to try and fix the water pump system.  Yes you’re right, still isn’t working properly.