Milton Keynes to Stoke Bruerne

Wed 10^th June  (postscript)

James had a walk later and discovered a bird hide, from where he saw several egrets, herons, lapwings and a great crested grebe.

Great Crested Grebe

Squirrel

He returned via the Peace Pagoda, which is on a high point overlooking the lake. The Parks Trust seem to have responsibility for huge areas of open space, and it must cost a lot to maintain.

Peace Pagoda

Here there is a “One World Tree” where people attach prayers to the branches. Presumably this is meant to appeal to people of all faiths.

One World Tree

Thu 11^th June

We rang the Milton Keynes Market and established that it was definitely open today, after the experience in Leighton Buzzard. We walked with Chris and Sally through Campbell Park (run by the Parks Trust) to Milton Keynes Centre, using brollies to keep out the wind and light drizzle.

The market takes place five times a week, and there were a good number of stalls open, including several phone and laptop places.

We were told that the MiFi cannot be unlocked, and that the MiFi devices are only sold as a package with an internet provider, so we cannot buy one and then put in a data sim from another company.  This is becoming very frustrating. We are missing out on Zoom meetings with our home group, and with Canal Ministries, and we are probably missing important information on Facebook or emails. The data allowance on our phones is very small and almost used up already with twelve days to go.  On Monday, the lockdown eases further, with non-essential shops being allowed to open, so perhaps I will be able to speak to someone at Three. A quote from the Three invoice: “There’s still time to get this sorted. Give us a call, and we’ll chat through your options.” We tried again on two different phone numbers, and the machine told us to try again later. That makes fifteen attempts.

We returned to the boat via a slightly different route.

 

Campbell Park map

James had a go at recording his part in a virtual choir video for Broughton Church. He sent it to Ben, our video and sound editing musician, using Chris’s Wi-Fi (Thanks Chris).

No socialising this evening as it was still wet and windy.

Moored at Campbell Park

No boating today

Fri 12^th June

We set off from Campbell Park without Kairos, as they are waiting for their son, Jacob, to join them later today.

 

Heron on a boat

We paused for thirty minutes at Giffard Park, to empty the cassettes, fill the water tank (slow!) and dispose of the rubbish. The rubbish bins were full and had accumulated more rubbish on top and it was very smelly. Thankfully, someone was there to remove it, otherwise we could not have left ours.

Hazel paid a visit to what used to be One-Stop, finding that, like the one near our canal basin in Aylesbury, it had become a Tesco Express.

We set off again, mooring at Stanton Low Park, one of our regular stopping places. We both walked down the hill to the ruined church of St Peter, and the site of the manor house. We heard a cuckoo.

Kairos arrived later and moored behind us.

James went for a late walk down to beyond the church, trying to spot the cuckoo, which was making lots of noise in the trees near the river Great Ouse. He couldn’t see it.

 

Gabriel and Kairos at Stanton Low Park

 

St Peter’s Church

 

Dandelion clock

River Great Ouse

0 locks, 3 miles. Dep 0905, arr 1120

Sat 13^th June

The view from the boat at Stanton Low Park

Chris, Sally and Jacob went for a walk at our recommendation, and ended up in the bird reserve by accident, and had to climb over a fence to get out.

As we were about to depart for Wolverton, a very evil-looking wide beam called Valhalla came past, very slowly. We stayed where we were for another 8 minutes to let them get away, and then we set off. When we arrived in Wolverton, two miles away, they were just disappearing under the railway bridge.

Kairos also arrived, and we went to do some shopping at Tesco. As we picked up our trolley, we were looking for disinfectant to wipe the handle, but the security guard said they were routinely wiped as they were put away. This was incorrect. We returned the trolley as we left, and other people then used it.

We left Wolverton, looking for a mooring where we could have a barbecue.

Wolverton moorings

Swan family

Cygnets

The historic railway bridge

We crossed the Cosgrove Aqueduct, where a man was doing brisk business selling ice creams from a bicycle. We found a mooring soon afterwards on the right and stopped for a very pleasant BBQ. Chris turned Kairos in the winding hole, to face back in preparation for the morning.

Ice creams for sale

Cosgrove aqueduct

Looking down to the Great Ouse below

Barbecue on the Cosgrove embankment

0 locks, 3 ½ miles. Dep 1125 arr 1210 Wolverton. Dep 1500 arr 1540 Cosgrove embankment.

Sun 14^th June

Chris and Sally headed back to Wolverton to put Jacob on a train to Manchester. As we had no internet, we could not follow the Broughton Church Facebook service this morning, so we set off through Cosgrove Lock. We spotted Oyster Catchers in the meadow above the lock.

Oyster Catcher

Solomon’s Bridge

We had a very pleasant cruise towards Stoke Bruerne, until we came to Yardley Gobion, where we came up behind the menacing wide beam Valhalla. It then took an hour to go behind them for the two miles to foot of the Stoke Bruerne Flight. Thankfully, they waved us past, as they were stopping to wait for more crew. We had been in touch with Kathryn at Stoke Bruerne, and we had established that Valhalla was departing through the tunnel at 0730 tomorrow. We had decided we would go through first.

 

Valhalla at Yardley Gobion

One yellow and one brown

 Valhalla still ahead

Valhalla mooring up

We went up the Stoke Bruerne flight on our own as Kairos was a few hours behind us.

Stoke Bruerne Bottom Lock

Gongoozlers at Lock 15

We were amazed at the number of people out and about in Stoke Bruerne. The Boat Inn was serving drinks outside, and the illegal ice cream van was doing a lot of business. There were people everywhere. There was a couple having a meal on the lock beam, complete with glasses of wine. There was not a lot of social distancing taking place.

Stoke Bruerne Top Lock

Crowded Stoke Bruerne

We met up with our friend Kathryn for a socially distanced chat, and later James went back down the hill to help Chris and Sally up the locks with Kairos. As he walked down the hill to set the locks for coming up, he found a boat going down, so he asked them to leave the gates open, and he set the locks for the boat coming down. They crossed with Kairos just before the bottom lock.

We enjoyed an Indian takeaway.

8 locks, 7 ½ miles.  Dep 1020, arr 1425

Next: A bit of a rush to get to Leamington Spa in time for Chris and Sally to catch a train on Thursday. Hoping to get internet sorted out there as well.