As predicted, we awoke to the patter of rain on the metal roof of the boat. It was coming down quite heavily and our plan for the day was to maybe stay here all day and catch up with some friends of Marlene and Wolfgangs.
We went into Crick to do a little bit of food shopping and then spent a couple of hours playing the board game Café International before heading across the canal to the pub at 1.30pm. We had our lunch there and then Collin and Mary joined us. This couple is from Melbourne in Australia and spend three months every year on their canal boat. They also spend some time most years in China where they have many friends as for a while they taught English there. Great life style and they never have to experience winter, ever!!!!
They spent time showing us pictures of the River Nene which goes to Cambridge and some of the sights on the way. The original plan was for us to take the boat on this route and end up in a place called Bedford. This would take about two weeks. Meantime, Marlene and Wolfgang would go to Germany for family celebrations. Marlene and Wolfgang would then meet up with us in Bedford where they would take the boat back up the river and we would fly home. It was a very good plan but Di put a big spoke in the wheel. She is freaked out by being on the rivers on narrowboats of which we experienced last year. It was never a pleasant experience for her last year as the expanse of water with the currents in a narrowboat is stressful.
Our plan now is to take the boat and do the Warwick ring which will take us about 10 days and then return the boat to Northampton where Marlene and Wolfgang will join up with us. They will then take the boat up and down the River Nene whilst we return to Canada.
We returned from the pub and moved the boat only a short distance as it was getting late and we needed to run the engine for hot water and recharge the batteries. We went through the Crick tunnel which is 1.5 km.
From here we only went a further five minutes as any further and we were too close to the M1 which creates too much noise for the evening. We are well positioned now to do the Watford locks first thing in the morning. It is a staircase of four locks and like many of them they create a bottle neck so it is a good idea to be the first in the queue.
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