On to Newbury

We woke this grey morning to a lot of activity outside of our boat, there are canoeists every where we later fined out it due to a race

                                                                   

They are racing from Devises to Westminster a gruelling 125 miles.

http://www.dwrace.org.uk/overview.html

So we set off trying not to hit any of these competitors and we travel through isolated water meadows, the village of Thatcham sit about a mile away from the canal. 

We pass through another turf sided lock with the funny sounding name of Monkey Marsh lock This is listed as an ancient monument by. English Heritage

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It's not long before we see Newbury Racecourse and then the canal becomes more industrialised with factory's on both sides.

We take on some water, empty our waste tank and buy some more coal and logs at Newbury Boat company.

We then try to moor near the park but the wind comes up and it we just can't manage to keep  the boat by the bank so we carry on through another lock which fortunately for us is manned by lock keepers, because there are still racing canoeist using the canal just pass the lock we moor up by West Mills for the night.

Here a link to a few ghost stories from Newbury sleep tight 

http://www.berkshirehistory.com/legends/ghosts_n.html