Crick to Welford - our new home

Day 5: Crick to Welford
We deserve a leisurely day and this is it. 12 miles and one lock to go, turning off the Leicester arm to go just 1.5 miles to the end of the Welford arm and our new home.
Though drizzle and worse comes over us, and our mooring isn't quite ready, we nevertheless moor up comfortably and temporarily and celebrate with an excellent pie at The Wharf, our new local.

And so Patience is at peace again as we drive back to Cambridge, pretty tired but pleased with our work - 36 travelling hours, over 5 days, 70 miles of river and canal and a massive 58 locks.

When planning, we have estimated journey times by adding the number of locks to the number of miles and dividing the total by 3.  This assumes an average speed of 3 mph and an average of 20 minutes to get through each lock. In practice we have tended to do a lock in nearer 15 minutes. We've also compared our efforts with the invaluable Canal Planner and find we are about 10% longer in time than their estimate. However over all it's pretty predictable unless you're stuck in a long queue for a lock at busy times.

There's much to be done now at our new pontoon. John will tinker with his 15/16th spanners and we'll install a new, electric, fridge. Then we can explore the region, ideally placed as we are to go up and down the Leicester line and back into the Grand Union, from which the world is at our feet. We might even create a plan to visit all the traditional English (and Welsh) counties that have canal access, as we have done - walking - with The Walking Boys. Once our knees have recovered.

Today: 12 miles, 1 lock, 5 hours. Knackered.