Today we completed our ascent to the summit of the Oxford Canal. Admittedly that’s not very high, but it’s taken us four slow days to get here from Oxford (five if you count Saturday’s effort) to cover 35 miles, 30 locks and 17 lift bridges. The Coventry and Grand Union Canals earlier in the trip exceeded our expectations, and Cal had fond memories of the South Oxford from a hire boat holiday in the ’80s, but in truth it has been a little disappointing. 
True, there are some very pretty villages and the canal winds it way through some lovely stretches of countryside, there are some unusual shaped locks, lift bridges and sections on the River Cherwell to add interest. But in its southern stretches it is very shallow (even allowing for water levels being exceptionally low at the moment), banks overgrown with vegetation, long stretches with few possible moorings followed by long stretches with moored boats slowing down passage even more. All of which have made for very slow progress and few really memorable sights.
View from Somerton Deep Lock - 12 feet deep - one of the deepest narrow locks on the network
On Sunday night we stopped at Enslow opposite the “Rock of Gibraltar”. This is a lovely old boatmen’s pub with good real ale – but with very bad 1970′s pop music piped both in the bars and outside! And about 6 customers on a Sunday evening. Monday took us to a lovely rural mooring south of Aynho, before heading for Banbury on Tuesday where we stayed overnight to avail ourselves of a launderette and do a supermarket shop on Wednesday morning.
Banbury has undergone a lot of redevelopment since the ’80s. Locking up through the bus station and Castle Quay centre under the curious gaze of shoppers was more like being in Birmingham and a total contrast to the sleepy rural canal before and after it. There aren’t many facilities blocks where the crew can nip into Debenhams while the boat takes on water! Even more surreal is the survival of Tooley’s in the middle of it all.
Above Banbury the canal has become more interesting. Another remote mooring on Wednesday night, then a stop in the charming village of Cropredy this morning. It won’t be as peaceful when the annual Fairport Convention Music Festival is on in a few weeks time. 
Two short flights of locks brought us to the summit – and disaster! Pulling in above Claydon top lock (ironically onto one of the few planned moorings with rings), with a noise as if we’d run over a pile of bricks, the engine stopped and the swan neck jumped out of its attachment to the rudder. After much consideration over a cup of tea and a certain amount of trial and error trying to get it back from above, the skipper decided there was nothing for it but to enter the water. With judicious use of mooring plank as lever from above and the technical stuff going on under the water, success was achieved. In the end, it turned out that the whole thing had been caused by a length of knotted rope, not a ton of bricks at all. We have the photos but feel they are not suitable for those of a nervous disposition.
Gongoozlers
