Braunston -> Norton Junction

The winter mooring has finished, and I’m off again.

What a waste of time it was.

When they said ‘Braunston’ with roughly a mile of 24/48/14 day moorings, I didn’t anticipate they’d put me outside the village.

Braunston Village

Is fair enough. The people at the post office are friendly, and will try and resolve any problems you may have.

I went to the pubs.

Sometimes they were empty, sometimes they were full.

I visited the chandlery, of which there are 3 or more.

In a sense, the facilities available beyond the control of CRT are good.

The actual moorings they provide are poor.

They’re not even in Braunston.

I was expecting them to put me on a nice piece of made up towpath on a visitor moorings close to the centre of the village.

That’s what I’m paying for. Prime moorings with priority in winter.

What I got is below.

A muddy towpath, opposite a field in the middle of no-where.

Not worth the £13 per month per metre we paid for it.

Elsan is 1/4 mile down that towpath. Pumpout 1/2 mile. Waterpoint 1/4 mile again.

It’s totally put me off.

Not to worry. I’m in Buckby Wharf now.

Norton Junction

Much closer to the amenities.

It even has a little road for the people on the 48hr.

For the poor old winter moorers, it’s a different story. As before. 1/2 mile walk or so to the middle of no-where down muddy towpaths, then pay £8 per month for the privilege.

Here’s a little video showing the moorings at ‘Norton Junction’, somewhere I considered when looking around, assuming it would be near to the elsan another facilities…

It’s just not the case.

Total waste of money.

Winter moorings maps

The CRT released these maps showing the locations AFTER the November winter moorings season start.

If you look through them, as I did at the time they were released, you can see that most of the moorings are in useless locations, far from the centre of action in the locations specified.

To add insult to injury

A broken down boat belonging to one of the people from the village had moored on the priority moorings. When I got there, and told me he was a winter moorer and always moored in Braunston for the winter.

He wasn’t in fact a winter moorer, he was someone from the village whose boat had broken down.

For the 3 months I was there, his boat spent more than 2 months in the same spot as mine for free.

I asked the enforcement officer about it and he said he had issues with his engine.

Doesn’t explain why he insisted he was paying for winter moorings when I got there and his boat spent 2 months in a priority spot for free.

Total pisstake.

Anyway.

I won’t be doing this next year.

Another happy customer from the CRT.