True to their word, water was put on, and things looked good for us to continue in the morning. We weren't going too far this day. Lock 30 was only 4 miles away, so we hoped to be there within an hour and a half.
We set out shortly after noon, with Sarah pulling us into the lock. We slowly motored past the landmarks we had walked by the previous days (now moving slower than we had on foot).
Farther along, we passed a canal-side pub, The Thatch which was opened in the 1700s. Sadly it closed a few years ago.
By around 1:30 we arrived at Lock 30. It was a quite picturesque. The area around the lock had flowers and a piece of old farm machinery and was well looked after. The lock-keeper's cottage had been renovated and looked fresh and charming. The bridge was unusual in that it was painted white.
We went through the lock and moored up on at the jetty on the far side. The spot was quiet, with a view out the window of a herd of bulls. It was sunny and hot (is this Ireland?!?), so we found a spot in the shade of a tree on the bank of the canal and all relaxed in the grass. Alan, the lock keeper who lived in the house, stopped by. He let us know that another boat was coming through.
The other boat turned out to be a barge brought in by WI to carry a load of clay to patch a leak in the canal. I ran up to help with the lock, and then helped him tie up to the tree we had been relaxing under.
Later, as Sarah put Andrea to bed, an older woman walked by with a cane. She turned out to be Alan's mother, and told us about how their family had helped build the canal, and were then offered jobs as lock keepers. So, the house had been in the family for over 200 years!
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