The Hodma'dod: Imitating the Flying Dutchman

We’ve taken out time retreating from the western end of the canal with a night in Bathampton, and then a night at Claverton hoping to get a view of the waterwheel pump. Unfortunately its under renovation so we walked up (and I do mean up, its about a mile from the canal on a continuous rising 1 in 10) to the American Museum. We did the grounds but not inside the house as we had the girls with us. Then on to Bradford on Avon where we spent 3 nights and had a thorough investigation of the town. It is fascinating having a very old section up the hill (everything is hills here -a culture shock for us East Anglians) of old weavers cottages and its a warren of alleyways, stairs and passages just as fascinating as Bath but much more of a “lived in” feel than just a tourist hot spot.

From there an easy day travelling to Semington for a night and then on to Sneed Cleeve where we had arranged to meet Sarah’s goddaughter Anna. We haven’t seen her for 5 years and that was at funeral so it was great to catch up with her and hear about her experiences doing the Fastnet race a couple of times amongst other things.

This is where our relaxing trip back starts to go awry. The plan for the following day had been to go to Foxhangers then on to the bottom of the Caen flight and then tackle the flight the following day. In the event we decided not to stop at Foxhangers and go straight to the bottom of the flight but when we got there a couple of volunteers had just helped a couple of boats down asked if we wanted to go up. They were uncertain that there would be volunteers on on the following day and as the forecast was for that day to be a warm one we decided to take up their offer. So in the end we did 32 locks and 2 swing bridges that day, a new personal best!

We felt that deserved a rest so took the 72 hours available in Devizes and had a really relaxing time soaking up the sun although we were lucky to secure the last mooring at the wharf when we arrived and it remained full the whole time we were there.

So yesterday we left Devizes with the intention of going to Honey Street but on arrival there it was full - some sort of summer solstice celebration (apparently the pub is the centre for crop circle fans!) so we headed for Pewsey but on arrival there it was full so we headed for Wooton Rivers but when we got there - yes it was full. So we headed for some staging we had seen a couple of locks on but when we got there - you're getting the picture by now I hope and as to why this blog has the title it has- it was full. Not strictly true; it was very busy because there was a huge field of tents being erected and a band tuning up obviously for another summer solstice celebration so we didn’t thing it was likely to be very restful. So we headed for Crofton but when we got there - surprise, surprise -it was full. By this time is was 6pm (we had started at 8am) and we had had enough so we moored on the lock staging. Up early this morning in case anyone was wanting to use the lock and eventually a boat came off the moorings below us and we have taken their space so will recuperate for 48 hours and then move on to good knows where. We hope to moor in Hungerford but may well end up having to sail the K & A for eternity. The strange thing is that although all the mooring is taken, yesterday, in our 10 hour 17 miles and 10 lock marathon we only saw about 8 boats on the move. It will be interesting to see how many boats move off this mooring today. Given thats it's 48 hours it should on average be a half of them shouldn't it? Some hope.