Retirement with No Problem

Stoke Bruerne to Rothersthorpe Top Lock, Grand Union Canal, and GU Northampton Branch, 5 miles 0 locks

The Blisworth Tunnel exhibition at the Waterways Museum at Stoke Bruerne was disappointingly not good.  They had decided to make it look interesting by putting it in a ‘tunnel’.  A very dim area draped in black voile…. plenty of pictures, but with no proper lighting it was difficult to see and read the captions that went with them.  Other bits there really were just some tools which were generally used throughout the waterways… so nothing in particular that caught my eye, or for that matter of any interest that I couldn’t find on the internet, information wise. .

 However, we spent a very pleasant morning and early afternoon in Stoke Bruerne, feeling we were on show to the public who were enjoying their day walking from the village to the Blisworth Tunnel entrance and return… the comments as people passed were amusing, obviously some never having set eyes on a narrowboat before..”Oh look, a kitchen sink!”  “Oh look a dog!”  “Oh look people live on there!”

So late this afternoon we set off to do THAT tunnel

I had walked down to the entrance of the tunnel earlier this morning, not only to try and steady my nerves, but to have a look at the new plaque that had been placed there just last Monday denoting that this is the 200th year since the tunnel was built.   On the building you can see on the right in the pic, there was some information…… Bats!!  For goodness sake, will I now have to contend with Bats in there!  A very informative poster describing that there are bats living in the tunnel!  It went on to say, that these bats do hibernate in the winter… I was just hoping they didn’t get a sniff of this spring like weather, and that they would all still be slumbering away!

Well emerging from the northern portal, a sigh of relief.. just the one boat in there coming the other way.. and no bats!!  So that is Blisworth done… no tunnels now for a long time for me!

We turned right at Gayton Junction to join the Northampton Arm of the GU Canal, stopping on the corner for the services, and to wait for Mr Tesco to turn up with a home delivery ordered a couple of days ago, then it was onward heading for Northampton, mooring for the night just before the first of the 17 locks that take us up to Northampton and the River Nene.