The Hodma'dod: Back to Bath

Sorry its been a few days since I last posted, I’ve been so busy with the important things in life, sunbathing, sleeping, enjoying a beer or two, laughing myself silly at Germans falling into locks - more on that later - and just haven’t had a moment to spare

We did the Clifton Suspension Bridge on our last full day in Bristol, taking the girls on a bus - bus passes accepted for all 4 of us - and walked back along the Severn from there to the floating harbour. Again something worth seeing and another masterpiece from Brunel although it wasn’t really his design in the end and wasn’t finished until after his death.

That evening we had a great meal with Lynn and Ian from NB Travino at the bistro at the end of our jetty. As they were staying on for another 5 days or so it seems unlikely that we would meet up again so a farewell meal.

Thursday saw us leave Bristol to start the long journey back to Reading. An uneventful first day, mooring up again at Hanham lock for a meal at the Chequers.

The following morning gave us our first encounter with “The German.” Strictly the boat (which happened to be a yogurt pot -glass fibre for the uninitiated) was skippered by a Welshman with the German as crew but for the sake of this story its the German who has the staring role.

We decided to fill with water at the lock which meant turning around and going back 100yards to the landing stage and as we approached, the aforementioned boat was coming out of the lock and, understandably, they thought we were going in so did not bother to close the top gates. We had no problem with that other than the fact that they also made no attempt to close the paddles. Still it gave us something to do whilst filling with water and someone to grumble at. Oh, that that had been the last time we encountered them.

We went from Hanham lock to the moorings at Bitton where luckily there was one space left on the 24 hour mooring, the other being taken by a boat which our friends on NB Terino had seen there when they passed some 6 days earlier. (I’ll try not to keep harking on about overstayers I know you will all be bored to death by now but it is really, really, galling.)

Anyway, off the following morning to get to Bath with plans to do the first 3 locks in the flight (which included the 20ft deep lock) and then moor for a couple of days. Given the size and weight of Deep locks’ gates we truly hoped that we would meet someone to go up with. Well, we had 4 locks to negotiate before the flight so hopefully we would find someone. At the first lock just as we were emptying it to enable us to go in I saw a boat approaching in the distance, great news. Unfortunately it turned out to be a 15ft single handed inspection launch so not a great deal of help and very nerve racking to try and avoid crushing it in the turbulent lock. We decided to stop again for water after the lock (Sarah’s washing machine regime demands regular top ups) so that help disappeared over the horizon.

The next lock, just as we were emptying it, yes, another boat arrives, another yogurt pot but with a crew of two and a decent size so things were looking better for some assistance. Wrong! Not sure if either of them had been out before but both seemed clueless and it took ages to organise the lock and clear it. On to the next lock. Following them down the river to find that at the next lock they were turning round and heading back from whence they had come. Hey-ho on we go on our own.

Through that lock on our own and towards the next lock and in front of us I could see another boat, This time a narrowboat. Hooray! A look through the binoculars confirmed that there were at least 3 adults on board. This looked hopeful. Mm, I suddenly became aware that we were catching them up quite quickly and had to slacken our pace to stop overhauling them. Anyway they moored on the lock landing and I pulled in behind them to let Sarah off the bow to hear that they asked her if she would mind doing the lock on her own as although the skipper was experienced the others were on board for the first time with two children. Any guesses as to what Sarah’s response was? Suffice to say she did one paddle whilst a crew member from the other boat did the other. It also transpired that they were not going up the Bath flight so although in going through 4 locks with three different boats we were still on our own (we thought) for the Bath flight and deep lock.

( I haven’t forgotten about the German we are getting to that part soon)

As we were approaching the bottom lock of the Bath flight we passed the inspection launch we had gone through the first lock of the day with moored up but didn’t see any one aboard so assumed he was shopping (or something)

Up to the lock landing for the bottom lock to find a hire boat moored there with no one aboard. Have I mentioned how irritated I’m becoming with boats moored in the wrong place? No? I’m sure I have. Never mind I’ll leave it for now. Anyway I managed to moor up and we went into the lock to find hot on our tail the inspection launch. Well, at least some help. As we raised the water level and saw up towards deep lock there was a yogurt pot moored up on the lock landing at the top of our lock but facing up stream which turned out to be ??? Yes, our German and Welsh friends. “Ve do not wish to go up zee deep lock on our own so one of you vill come with us. You - pointing at us - are zoo big and you do not have any fenders down (pointless really considering their boat looked as though it was shrouded in barrage balloons) You vill be ideal” - pointing at our inspection launch friend - To avoid a diplomatic incident we concurred. Yeh back to doing the lock on our own.

So inspection launch comes out of the lock and goes into deep lock. The Welshman has gone on to deep lock to assist with closing gates (wonders will never cease) leaving German to cast off and take boat into lock. Well, in an earlier blog I likened us to Tim and Pru but this guy had us well and truly beat. It take him ages to get off the mooring much revving of both outboard motors lots of smoke and eventually he manages it but has forgotten that his bow rope is still around a bollard. As it is not tied up it doesn’t stop him leaving so there he is trailing the rope with two hearty outboard motors ticking away. He arrives in the lock and decides that he needs to tie up so attempts to throw a rope up to Welshman on the lock. This is some 19 feet above his head. Given that the rope looked about 20 feet long I thought it was a mite optimistic and so it proved. After about 6 attempts it was on to plan B which involved getting the boat hook and hooking it around the lock ladder to pull the boat to the side. This he managed to do but then the classic; he lent over and grabbed hold of the ladder with the inevitable result that the boat moved quickly away from the side. Result? Yep. Splash! One very wet German faced with a 20 foot ladder to climb. This was really turning into an entertaining afternoon. So German is on the lock side, lock is filled. Unfortunately (!!) the two previous boats up had somehow managed to deplete the small pound above deep lock of water so that when the levels were reached the inspection launch which probably had a draft of about 6” got out of the lock Ok but the German yogurt pot ground to a halt on the cill. Instead of trying to reverse back into the deep water of the lock he kept the engines on forward and although, apparently they should raise if they meet an obstacle, one didn’t and it ceased functioning. Wonder why? Suggestions on a postcard to… Well and truly stuck on the cill we then had to raise the level in the pound so that he could get himself off. This took some 15 minutes but he then floated out but made no attempt to close the gates or paddles behind him so left it to me to do. Sarah by this time had gone up the flight to see what was happening higher up and it transpired that the next pound was even lower. I didn’t know this at the time so closed the gates emptied the lock and brought Hoddy in to hear the news that no one was going anywhere for a considerable time until levels could be restored. So I found myself climbing out of the lock to while away a couple of hours whilst the matter was sorted.

Meanwhile our German/Welsh fiends (sorry, friends) were knocking on doors of local cottages to see if anyone would let them fill up their water containers so that the German could have a shower and wash off the canal water - whats wrong with our canal water?

The CRT man that Sarah managed to magic out of thin air did a great job in sorting things out, having put Sarah in charge of the top lock to forbid anyone to come down until he said it was Ok. No one did.

So four and a half hours after we had entered bottom lock we had gone up 3 locks and were moored up for the night. Inspection launch and our friendly tupperware had gone on and we just hope that having spent a couple of days here recovering we wont see them again.

Other than that it been a rather quite time, a bit more sightseeing around Bath, a re-provisioning of the beer cellar and we will be on our way tomorrow.