Fosse Locks to Long Itchington

2.8 miles, 8 locks, 2hrs 15mins.

A short report today with no map as internet connection is poor.

The intention today was to head for Long Itchington until we arrived at Fosse top lock at 9:20am to be confronted with this:-

Fortunately Kev from C&RT was already at the lock when we arrived, and he headed up the canal to see if there was a breach. There wasn’t so he drove off to Napton to send some water down from the reservoir.

There was only these 2 boats in the pound, which is about 1 mile long, and fortunately both had settled down on the canal bottom.

Jo and I walked all the way to the next lock Wood lock.

By the time we returned to Fosse top lock two further engineers arrived to turn the back pump on to speed the process of filling the pound up.

Because the pound we were in below the lock may have dropped in level we moved Hadar into the lock so that if the level did drop she would be able to sit on more level ground. It was 2:30pm before we were able to make a bid to get through the pound which we did without any great problem. We think the problem was caused by a boater who had travelled past us late last night and had left one top gate open, and the bottom gates were leaking that much to empty the pound over night. Even Kev felt the leaking from the bottom gates was excessive and was going to get a repair pushed through ASAP. We got to Long Itchington, our intended destination, but had no time to explore, which we will now do tomorrow.

Keith.