My narrow escape (Home)

Braunston is the place where the Grand Union Canal and the Oxford Canal meet. Going from one to the other means going under these beautiful wrought iron bridges. The Horseley Ironworks bridges at Braunston The first few miles out of Braunston are a stretch of the Grand Union that is shared with the Oxford Canal, which was built much earlier. It avoids having too many locks by following the contours of the land closely, which makes it a lot more winding than the GU. These few miles had a very different feel to the canal up to now as it meanders around all the hills. A little taste of the Oxford canal later in the summer on my return to London. Winding around the hills The bridges look different on the Oxford Canal too Eventually at Napton, the GU leaves the Oxford Canal again as it moves on towards Birmingham and the Oxford Canal goes ... well to Oxford. I did the first three locks here on my own. They are different to the locks so far as they are hydraulic and e

The first day of this part was a route with no locks, which I did in lovely sunny weather. Quite uneventful and relaxing. But the main features of this part of the journey are the Buckby (7) and Braunston (5) locks and the Braunston tunnel. Yes, another long tunnel. Hopefully the last one for quite a while. I tackled the Buckby locks on one day and the tunnel and Braunston locks the next day. Shortly before the Buckby locks there is a section where the canal is flanked by a high speed trainline on the left and the motorway on the right. I always find it curiously satisfactory when the slow route meets a fast route, like I know something that they don't. This time it was even more satisfactory, as my progress on the canal was actually faster than the traffic on the M1. I am faster than the lorries! Then I arrived at the Buckby locks. I saw from a distance that there was a boat in the lock mouth and it seemed stuck there. I had been hoping for another boat to share the lock