Foxton Locks

With one more full day in Gilmorton we decided to skip Bosworth Field where the battle between Richard and Henry took place. From the brochure, it sounded a bit too much like Disneyland so we decided to give it a miss. With the weather once again clear and sunny, we took our host's advice and set off with a picnic lunch for the Foxton Locks. We stopped briefly at a nearby Golf Course where I hit a bucket of balls on their driving range. They only had some crappy irons for me to use and so it was bit of a waste of time. I don't think I could play on this course because the M1 is right beside it and the constant background noise was quite unbelievable.

This is a flight of locks which allow three canal systems to interconnect. They also had an inclined plane lift operating in the early 20th century but this fell into disrepair as the railways took over. The locks (10 in all in two flights of 5) are very impressive and handle a lot of narrow boat traffic. In the height of summer, there is always a queue. Luckily, there are a couple of nice pubs at the bottom to while away the time waiting!

We then headed back to our Airbnb and Miriam bought a bottle of Oyster Bay Chardonnay which we shared with our hosts (Sue and Alan) on their roof terrace as the sun set. We are getting on well with them and they have certainly made us welcome. After our dinner at 'The Crown' (again), we went back and drank a couple of gins with them. They haven't been to NZ but have had a holiday in Oz (Sydney). They also have their own camper here and seem quite keen on doing a camper trip around New Zealand. Suddenly it was after 11pm and we needed to get to bed.

Tomorrow (Friday) we set off for Devon which will take us about 4 hours - mostly on the M5. The next two nights we are staying with an alpaca breeder who is hosting the next Alpaca Manager presentation at her place on Saturday afternoon.

We then have another alpaca breeder to visit on Sunday before heading for London (via Stonehenge) to return the car on Tuesday.

Miriam's bruises are starting to come out and she has some interesting colour patterns!