Day Twelve - Market Harborough to Kilworth Wharf

We set out exploring Market Harborough in the morning. We were impressed with this very good looking town and looking more so with beautiful sunshine and lots of summer flowers in bloom. It has an unusual timber building on stilts at Church Square which was formally a grammar school. This sits alongside St Dionysius Church which has a large sundial on one of its walls with the motto “Improve the Time”. Henk has only brought two casual shirts from Brisbane for the boat and he needed another one so we went into the Heart Foundation second hand store and bought one for three pounds. When we leave the UK Henk can throw it away. We got this tip from Kerry our walking companion from last year’s walk.
Today was the day that we tackled the Foxton Locks which consist of two staircases of five chambers each. We were quite nervous about going through the flight of locks as we did see two Americans tackle a triple stair-case lock at Chester quite a few years ago and they made a complete hash of it. They had water going everywhere. Before we set off from Market Harborough we talked to a couple of older boaties who said that it was important that the red paddle was opened first and then the white paddle otherwise we could get into a lot of trouble. And then they discussed whether the white was really black and the red also had white on it. This made me feel even more nervous.
We need not have worried as when we arrived at Foxton Locks we were “adopted’ by Michael a retired vicar on his boat “Grand Folly”. He had a party of friends on his boat for the day. As the lock basin was very busy he allowed us to moor “Carli” alongside his boat. He then gave me the best tip. It goes: “Red before white and you’ll be alright. White before red and you are dead.” He then took me under his wing and he showed me the process as his boat went into the lock system ahead of our boat. It all went very smoothly and the locks attract a lot of tourists so we had company along the way. It took us an hour to climb the ten locks and we were very chuffed with ourselves when we had finished the flight.
A funny thing did happen at the basin. When Michael’s boat was progressing in the second lock a tourist asked Henk who was still holding our boat in the basin if we owned the black dog tied to a bench. Henk said we didn’t have a dog but it could belong to “Grand Folly”. It did; they had left their dog behind. When we passed Michael later along the canal where they were moored they having a cuppa and still laughing about nearly leaving their dog behind.
After the Foxton Locks there were no further locks but we did go through another tunnel today, the Husbands Bosworth Tunnel, a distance of 1170 yards. This time we didn’t have any boats coming towards us which made it easier for Henk to steer through it.
We moored at Kilworth Wharf at five o’clock. This has very little except for a boat maintenance wharf and a small reception and shop. We had dinner on the boat and had a delicious fried rice.
Photos: Church Square, Market Harborough; Sundial, St Dionysius Church, Market Harborough; Looking down Foxton Locks; Michael and his friends having a cuppa with their dog!;