Day 100 - how did that happen? Plus a change of schedule coming up.

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0 locks, 411 in total.







We had a flying visit from Sam this morning – it was lovely to see her and that's twice in one week!







Apart from that it was a very quiet day – water, pumpout, etc. We have friends visiting late tomorrow for a couple of days and have earmarked a good section for them to travel so that's why we've hardly moved today.







With the dearth of interesting news and photos, it seems like a suitable time to tell you of our sad decision to sell Dunlin after this trip. There are many reasons why this is a sensible thing to do but saying goodbye is still going to hurt.






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We've had a wonderful time this summer, thanks to friends and family covering for us at home and we are so grateful to you all. We're unlikely to do this again – leaving the garden for one season has been hard enough for John!
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Continual maintenance of a rusting steel boat is a thankless task and very time-consuming.
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If we hire a narrowboat each year then we can travel the parts of the network that we haven't managed this summer, without taking so long to get to the starting point.




We think it would be better to use a brokerage in the Midlands as they have a wider market so we'll not be returning down the South Oxford canal, the Thames or the Kennet & Avon as originally planned. At present we anticipate abandoning our schedule at Braunston, where there is a large brokerage; from there we will probably go to Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union and then up to Foxton on the Leicester Line, before returning to Braunston. I'll show this route on today's map so you can see what I mean.







Normal blog resumes tomorrow.

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Comments

[sgs]

sad decision
We know how you feel, done same recently. So glad you've had this fantastic journey in her and that you've shared it with us all. Sad face and big hug, Sarah.