Wednesday 3 July

It rained overnight and was raining again when we woke up. The hills give us complete shelter from the wind so apart from the occasional traffic on the road that runs alongside the canal and the rain dripping on the cabin top, there’s little or no noise. About 9:30 a small yacht passed us heading south to Lochgilphead, its horn alerting the bridge keeper to its imminent arrival. We have no inclination to get wet and the weather radar indicates that the rain should pass mid-morning so are staying put for now.

Around thirty minutes past noon after an early lunch of homemade ham and bean soup, we donned out oilies and as the rain had eased, decided to make a start on the Dunardry flight of locks. First we made a call to the Crinan office to check someone would be on hand to open the bridge just ahead, they would. So we untied and pottered on. Reaching the locks there was somewhat of a traffic jam but thankfully plenty of canal staff were on hand to assist with tying up and opening sluices and gates. Three boats came down, then it was our turn to enter the lock. A charter boat behind us wanted to join us in the lock, we looked at the Beneteau 45 and suggested there wouldn’t be room but the charterers thought otherwise until they got their bow through the gates! Possibly a skinny 25 footer might fit but Temptress broad beam and length basically fills most of the space. Sorry chaps you’ll have to wait.

You can’t hurry locks. Slowly we rose to give a new view. Dunardry has five locks in total. After the third, actually lock 11 as they are numbered from the southern end, there was a free pontoon so we decided to call it a day. It was almost four o’clock and we wanted to dry out and get warm. Almost 1.6nm and three locks had been covered in three hours.

Eventually the sun came out and things started to dry. We headed off for a walk to stretch our legs. Up to the top lock and on the way back took a detour into the woods surrounding the reservoir that feeds the top pound, not that in the current weather there is any shortage of water in the canal. The path we took is a section of the Dalraida Heritage Trail. Shame the weather isn’t great for hiking as it looks an interesting path to explore more. Faced with a set of steps down through the wood and no short circular route back to the towpath we decided to retrace our steps.

Back on Temptress we reheated the mince curry from the night before last and made a salad. Together with my homemade refrigerator pickles (a gherkin from the greenhouse sliced in equal parts of cider vinegar and water with a bit of salt, some sugar and some dried herbs) and sour cream it made a tasty filling for the out of date in January taco shells I’d found in the cupboard at home! As we sat down to eat the sky went dark and hailstones bounced off the saloon hatch quickly followed by a torrential downpour. After supper we read and lounged in the warmth of the diesel heater for a couple of hours before bedtime.