Arrived at the top of the Foxton Staircase locks and moored up for the night.
Went for a late afternoon stroll down the flight of locks to check out the surrounding area and the couple of pubs at the bottom where the junction to turn to Market Harborough or straight ahead to Leicester lies. We walked past a moored hire boat and one fella was trying his luck fishing so we had a chat then his two mates emerged from below and said they should go to the pub so we joined them.
They usually did holidays on their motor bikes around Europe and were bloody hard cases.
Past this Bronze statue on the tow path...
What the old days and the canal system was all about... the horse who towed the working boats, heavily laden, became mans best friend....
And not only men...
But boys would walk to steer and handle the pulling rope... It was not uncommon to trek from Birmingham to London, unload by hand shovel, and head straight back again...
Looking from the top..
First view of the flight... all the surrounding walk ways are very tidily kept...
Getting some needed, not, practice in for the next morning...
Leonie helps a boat coming up..
Next morning....
NB Firefly NZ is heading down.. and what awesome weather...
From one side to the other...
What agility... across the lock beams...
Going down...
Looking back as we exit the lock... there's an Awfully huge weight of water behind those gates...
We made the 5 mile run to the "No Exit" town of Market Harborough....
And what a nice tidy place to be.. A market town from 1203 it still has the old time feel..
The town...
Is built around the old Market centre and has an excellent selection of retail shops. Many are in old wooden fronted buildings but all have been tastily restored and painted.
Leonie as keen to buy, all / part of, a summer wardrobe and had a fine selection of clothes to purchase when she overheard another customer inquire about the 20% discount on offer from tomorrow if you joined their online account thing so enquiring she found out she could put the selected items aside, join online overnight, which happened, then go in the next morning and purchase the chosen articles and after the discount it worked out two of the items were Free. well that's compared to what she was prepared to pay twelve hours earlier..
That night it...
Got dark over Union wharf... the old wharfs and timber storage sheds now unrecognisable as apartments and a restaurant...
And in the morning....
The still day let one reflect on what must have been..
After a couple of days we headed back toward Foxton...
Waiting for me to catch up...Leonie's doing plenty of tow path walking. After a winter of "No Locks and Healthy Exercise" it's good to be out in the country air..
Back at the bottom of the locks...
It really was a Hot day...
So we moored up with a view.... 2 pubs and boats entering and leaving the bottom lock...
Then next morning....
We were second up the flight...
Everything to do with emptying and filling the locks has to be done as designed so...
We waited until the boat ahead cleared the lock so we could "steal" the water....
Blue skies, Hot day....
Shutting the gates...
And then...
There was only one to go.... after 50 minutes having a "Breather"...
Just before the canal reaches the top lock a short "arm" branches off. This was to take the working boats to the Inclined Plane. A mechanical type of "Short Cut" it took the boats 12 minutes to get down to the junction rather than 70 through the locks.
The site of what once was...
Opened in 1900 two large water filled tanks were used to transport the laden boats from the canal arm at the top across to the rail tracks then the boats were winched down or up the slope by a steam driven cable and pulley system to the canal below. The boats in the water troughs moved on rail tracks. Mechanical problems and costs meant it didn't run for long..
Here's a working boat...
To here to go down the slope on rails...
Still in one piece...
But showing it's age a working boat... heavy to move when fully laden..
Nearby is...
One of the original wheels that the cables ran around....
And if you think laying a lawn at home is hard "Yakka"...
These are the "Dump Trucks" they used to hand fill and shift all the soil and rock to make those engineering wonders...
On the canals it did freeze over in winter but....
The goods have to get through so an "Ice Breaker"above, was manned by 8 - 10 men who stood and rocked it moving along the canal to smash the ice... Double thickness hull...
As you move on along the canals with time on your side one can reflect on the great achievements and hardships those workers endured.
Then around the next bend Suddenly...
You pass someone who has achieved probably nothing worthwhile... The Hamsters dead but the wheels still turning.....
