We had another beautiful day today, so it was almost refreshing to be plunged into the cold, damp, and darkness of the Blisworth Tunnel. It’s one and three quarter miles long. We met two oncoming boats, neither of which were piloted by anyone who understood the Venturi effect. Happily we were prepared for this. Paula was able to push the prow of the boat back into the middle of the canal using a pole, or as we call it, the Poor Man’s Bow Thruster.

We moored up at the south end of the tunnel, and walked into the canal side village of Stoke Breurne. This is about the canaliest place on the whole of the inland waterways, with a canal museum, canal side pubs and restaurants, canal gift shops, and gazillions of gongoozlers.

I snapped up a book of canal reminiscences from the museum gift shop, and Paula bought a bucket and a mirror painted with the traditional narrowboat roses.

When we returned to our mooring we got chatting to the couple in the boat moored next to us, Steve and Maggie on the narrowboat Albert.

You’ll notice that Albert has two chimneys, one for the traditional coal burning range in the tiny cabin at the back of the boat and one for the vintage diesel engine further forward. Forward of the engine room the boat gets a bit less traditional, with comfortable living quarters rather than thirty tons of coal. Steve also blogs about their travels, so you can find more about Albert here.

There are seven locks leading down from Stoke Bruerne, and we agreed to tackle them with Steve and Maggie later in the day. Steve worked the lock gates while Paula and Maggie gave a demonstration of precision boat wrangling…

… bringing the boats into the lock together side by side.