To Bridge 47 (Gayton Junction) from Bridge 32 (Nether Heyford)

It had been a lovely sunny day on the Saturday (the previous day) though I was inside for most of the day for a very enjoyable singing workshop. The following day (Monday) turned out to be lovely day too, and by midway through the following week we had the hottest April day since 1949. However the Sunday was misty for the whole morning (though only forecast to be like this to 8am) and it rained from mid afternoon. We had a full day free in the area and were determined to get out walking for at least part of the day, and the muddiness of footpaths everywhere made many routes essentially impassible (as illustrated on Tuesday when I attempted to walk the route described here with friends; even within the Country Park the route was not passable with ordinary shoes).

We'd originally intended to visit the Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne in the morning and follow this with the walk, but the weather forecast led us to reverse the order of these events. We also decided to do the walk "in reverse" (i.e. to walk along the tow path as if walking from Birmingham to London) because of uncertainty over parking in Nether Heyford. We drove in separate cars from the Milton Keynes South West Premier Inn, where were staying, to the Gayton Junction Car Park (SP7164554). and I left my car there, then we drove together in Richard's car to Nether Heyford. We had hoped to park near Wharf Farm, on the bend in the road between the canal and the railway at SP655578, but there was no space here, so we drove into Nether Heyford itself where we parked on the Green (SP660587). It's only about half a mile from here to the canal.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about this section of the Grand Union Canal, in particular it is lock-free (which one of the marinas which we passed uses in advertising) but it was attractive enough, with a good variety of bridges. The rolling Northamptonshire countryside is attractive and there were some encouraging signs of spring, with buds breaking and lambs in the fields. The canal was also busier than in previous weeks, though not excessively so, with occasional narrowboats passing us, other boat-owners pottering around their boats, and a few friendly dog-walkers. The towpath was still muddy in places, but the misty weather made the canal nicely atmospheric and we also saw a heron. We were quite close to the M1 and very close to the railway line in places, but neither disturbed us.

We ended the walk at the very attractive Bridge 47 (one of the bridges that barge ponies could cross without being untied) and returned to the car in the Gayton Junction car park. Google maps had sent us a peculiar route when driving between parking places earlier, but now we followed a much more logical route back over the two narrow canal bridges (over first the main Grand Union Canal and then the Northampton Arm) then through the villages of Rothersthorpe and Bugbrooke and so to Nether Heyford.

We then drove down the A5 back to the Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne, for lunch and our first actual visit to the museum. There's not a huge amount there, but definitely worth visiting once to learn more about the history of the canals and the life of those who worked on them. We also pottered around the pretty village of Stoke Bruerne and revisited the mouth of the Bilsworth Tunnel, pleased we had first been here at a quieter time of year as the route to the entrance was occupied by a large group of walkers.

Following leg (Grand Union Canal Walk)

Following leg (Midshires Way)