Herbie's ladder in a dramatic rescue , and some interesting aqueducts

 Well who'd have thought it after yesterday.  Coming past Clifton cruisers boatyard, there was a hire boat across the canal and some elderly gentlemen in somewhat of a fluster trying to extract an even older and more portly gentlemen from the canal.

He was up to his armpits in the water and there was no way they could lift him out.  They had no idea of what to do and their engine was still running (although mercifully out of gear as the man was barely a couple of feet from their propeller).

Quick as a not all that quick flash (I'm not so sprightly myself these days) I grabbed our ladder and ran, or walked probably, back to their boat and handed it over, telling them to stop their engine. The ladder did eventually allow the man to clamber out, but not before one of the slightly younger men jumped in to help him.  Kath took this not very clear photo from where we pulled Herbie into the bank.  That's me holding the rope to steady the boat because it kept moving from the weight of the man on the ladder.

Personally I would have preferred that they used the ladder to let them man climb onto the bank, but he wouldn't let go of the arm of the man on the boat.  The poor man was exhausted and each step on the ladder took him a couple of minutes.  Anyway, we were pleased that our ladder fulfilled its purpose.

Then we tootled on for only a short run to the Rugby Tesco mooring where we shopped and decided to sit in the shade for the rest of the day.

I did walk up the towpath to the two aqueducts nearby which are short but pretty high and the canal embankment here is big.  They don't look much from the canal

but they're quite high and very substantially built. 

Here's one viewed from from the top.

and the other, not many yards away, viewed from the bottom

Looking closer, we see the inscription 

RENOVATED BY BRITISH WATERWAYS . 1991 . OXFORD CANAL

A bit further up the canal is one of the many Oxford Canal iron bridges over the bit of canal that used to run there before they straightened it.

All in all an interesting and pretty stretch.  No mooring allowed though.

Tomorrow we have a cunning plan, but more of that in the next post.