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.

Overlooking Bradford

Weavers Cottages in Bradford

Rooftops of Bradford

Typical Alley in Bradford "Newtown"

A proper coffee house - eat your heart out Starbucks

Inside Mr Salvats Coffee Room

Mr Salvat's modern writing implement

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.

View up the Severn from Cliffton Suspension Bridge

Coffee break at the floating harbour (Hoddy in the background)

Ornate verandah in Bristol

Hoddy in the Floating Harbour

Pirates on the Bow! Actually a replica of Matthew the ship John Cabot bumped into Newfoundland with

At last a steam engine named after me! (At Bitton  Avon Valley Railway)

Our friendly inspection launch assistant

As it is in the beginning so shall it be at the end

We started our trip down the K & A on May 5th and ended it exactly 4 weeks later.

We started our trip down the K & A in a storm with winds gusting to 40mph and ended it exactly 4 weeks later in a storm with winds gusting to 40mph

We left Bath in a torrential rain storm (remind me - this is late spring/early summer isn’t it?) with NB Pema to share the locking with and we had a very pleasant (apart from the drenching) journey down onto the River Avon. What none the the guide books tell you is the severe paucity of mooring spaces. Once clear of Bath there are only 10 boat spaces spread over 3 locations before the Floating harbour at Bristol. We were lucky at Bitton as there was one space available so we breasted up with Pema and had a very tranquil mooring for the night, a really idilic spot. The following day we set off thinking that we may moor at Keynsham Thats spelt K E Y N S H A M (Anyone who knows what Radio Luxembourg was will understand what I’m talking about, anyone who doesn’t know what Radio Luxembourg was - lucky you for being so young)

There was one spot there and we pulled in but having investigated it decided it wasn’t ideal and lacked anywhere for the dogs so we carried on to Hanham lock where we found NB Pema already moored and joy of joys it had space and joy of joys it was 48 hours and joy of joys it was very near 2 pubs. So we stopped, had a great meal at the Chequers at Saturday lunch time and a good walk with the dogs both days. Checking the weather forecast for Monday showed that very strong winds were due around midday so we set off around 8.00am to try to get moored up before they arrived and that we did manage. We are tucked nicely into an inlet at Oporto Quay almost opposite the SS Great Britain. We are glad we are tucked away given the winds last night and today. In fact we saw NB Terino mid afternoon appearing to be leaving the harbour although we thought they were staying longer but an exchange of texts confirmed that they were purely moving to try to find more sheltered mooring as they were taking a battering where they had been.

This morning we finally succumbed to the cough that has been plaguing us both for the last 3 weeks and took ourselves to the local NHS walk in clinic and got ourselves some antibiotics which hopefully will stop us sounding like 40 a day smokers.

This afternoon we went round Brunel's masterpiece the SS Great Britain. A great experience and well worth it.

Tomorrow we remain here and will try to get up to see the Clifton Suspension bridge as we need to give the girls a day off from being buffeted around in the boat.

Breasted up with NB Pema at Bitton

Part of the magnificent engine of SS Great Briain

Such superb lines

From Brandon Park overlooking Bristol

Elegant town houses Queen Street Bristol

Bath Time

And boy do we need it, the dust being kicked up from the Tour de France that is the towpath here in Bath has coated everything in a not so thin layer of fine chalk dust.

We moved on from Bradford just a few miles and spent a couple of nights at Dundas Aqueduct and I have to say it was probably our favourite mooring of the canal so far. As usual most of the designated 48 hour moorings around the basin were occupied by long term liveaboards - Sarah made the mistake of asking one if he could move up a few feet so we could squeeze in to be told no he couldn’t cos he was off to work. It actually did us a favour as we moored just outside the basin and it was much more peaceful and we didn’t have the concern of all the hire boats trying to do a 90 degree turn onto the aqueduct in front of us.

Our second day there was my birthday (Oh thank you) 70th at that and as 2 of the boats that we had been seeing a lot of were also moored up we ended having a great social evening with Jane and Robert from NB Pema and Lynn and Ian from NB Verano, a very enjoyable day.

From there we came on to Bath and are moored very near Sidney Gardens one of of the many delightful open spaces that abound in Bath. We’ve done the tourist bit with a visit to the Royal Crescent including a tour of Number 1 as well as a stroll around the Abbey etc. 

Tomorrow sees us heading towards Bristol so down the locks here with Bath deep lock, all 19 feet of it, to look forward to and then onto the River Avon.

View from Dundas Aquaduct

Plenty of Wild Garlic for seasoning!

The entrance to the Somersetshire Coal Canal now only open for a few hundred yards for mooring

Needs no caption I think

Cleveland House over the K & A - the original had office of the K & A Canal Co

ditto

Trap door in the roof of the tunnel under Cleveland House so that documents could be handed up from the barges to the clerks inside

Just wondered how old the sign was

Manic bank holiday

Thank goodness we had a good mooring at Bradford upon Avon for the weekend. We moored up here on Friday afternoon just before the world and his wife decended upon us. Having had the canal virtually to ourselves for the last three weeks we have had more boat movements past us in the last two days than the previous 21 combined. Virtually all hire boats and one that managed to hit us whilst we were moored up.

We had a enjoyable journey up here stopping over night at Seend Cleeve where we celebrated Sarah’s birthday at the Barge Inn and then the following morning we joined NB Warneford for the trip to Bradford which was good as it was manned by 6 men from RAF Upavon so the locks were fairly easy on us. The boat is actually owned by the base/RAF and is available for men from the station to use. Its named after a famous WW1 pilot from the Royal Naval Air service who received the VC. From Wikipedia:-

“On 7 June 1915 at Ghent, Belgium, Warneford, flying a Morane-Saulnier Type L, attacked the German airship LZ 37. He chased the airship from the coast near Ostend and, despite its defensive machine-gun fire, succeeded in dropping his bombs on it, the last of which set the airship on fire. LZ37 subsequently crashed in Sint-Amandsberg^[6](51°3′43.2″N 3°44′54.7″E).^[7] The explosion overturned Warneford's aircraft and stopped its engine. Having no alternative, Warneford had to land behind enemy lines, but after 35 minutes spent on repairs, he managed to restart the engine and returned to base.”

Amazing the things these guys did.

We have had a restful few days here (apart from the boat traffic) and wandered around the town which is very attractive but totally blighted by the traffic (cars) through its centre. But get away from that and it is very quiet and historic including a Saxon church.

To add greatly to our enjoyment we met up again with NB Perma and spent a very enjoyable evening with Jane and Robert (and Bella their Lab)

Tomorrow we start to wend our way to Bath but will take a day or two to get there to try to avoid the bank holiday exodus.

One of many superb buildings in Bradford upon Avon

Tithe Barn at Bradford reckond to be the finest example in the country

Inside the Tithe Barn

Inside the Saxon church

Ditto

Rest and be Thankful

Well, we had the rest and now we’re thankful that we are down the main part of the Caen Flight.

The 2 day break certainly came at the right time. We spent most of it coughing and sneezing and taking medicine (REAL medicine not Scotch I might add) to try to shake it off.

Monday Sarah felt really bad so I went into Devizes to get aforementioned medicine and got caught in the most horrendous downpour. Luckily I was in full waterproofs and it certainly proved that they were - waterproof that is.

By the afternoon the sun had come out and Sarah felt in need of some fresh air so we took the dogs for a walk up Quakers Walk towards Roundway  and were rewarded with some stunning views.

Tuesday was reprovisioning day and we decided that an early start on the locks the following day was in order. Neither of us was still 100% but we had used up our 72 hours on the mooring and after my bleating on about over stayers we didn’t feel we should stay.

So this morning after filling with water we left the wharf at 8.05am to start the decent of the 29 locks. As Sarah was still the rougher of the two of us and the lock gates were of such a design (see pic below) that she would have had trouble crossing the top gates with her bad hip she steered and I did the locking. Of course we were on our own no other boat showing any sign of moving and as Sarah was not feeling confident I was opening both gates top and bottom. I checked the time after the first couple of locks and if we kept up the same rate of progress it looked as though we would arrive at the bottom of the flight around 10pm. Not a pleasing thought. Also I have to say that some of the winding gear on the bottom  gates is so highly geared it was taking 60 turns to raise the paddle ( I know, I counted them after about the third lock). At that time on our own and with both gates to do some metal arithmetic told me I was likely to be doing some 7,000 turns on the bottom gates alone by the time I reached the bottom. Thankfully when we reached the main middle section of the flight we were picked up by two volunteer lock keepers and made excellent progress from then on and ended up mooring at the bottom of the main flight at around 12.30.

Tomorrow we progress towards Bradford on Avon which we will hopefully get to on Friday and there may be some long term moorings there so a time out will be called for again I think.

View across to Devizes

Impending storm

Top lock gate construction is wierd, no board to walk on just the gate and to get on it you have to step around where the  beam joins

Not the first boater to take this view

Modern technology - solar power being used to pump the water back to the top of the flight

Damn, I forgot the Union Jack

Well, we made it to the summit. After a climb of some 10 days from base camp at Reading we reached the top of this difficult climb at Crofton Top lock.  A rarified atmosphere here at an altitude of 450ft but we made it without oxygen. Not much of a summit really only 3 miles before we started to descend. So 53 locks to get us to the top and 54 to get us down again but we had some long lock free pounds to look forward to. We had planned to moor that night on the visitor moorings at Wooton Rivers but when we got there there was no space, again it all appeared to be taken by boats that had obviously no intention of moving in 24 days or even months rather than the specified 24 hours, so we continued on to Pewsey where the visitor moorings were for 48 hours. We did manage to get in - just - but considering these were designated moorings the state of them was dreadful with collapsing banks and shallow water. We managed to get the bow in but it meant that we had to use the gang plank to get on and off. Well, you can imagine what the reaction of our intrepid crew members T n T was to that stage of affairs. To add to their trepidation when Teasle got back on board the first time she walked right to the end of the plank and unfortunately due to how it was positioned it meant that it went past the point of balance and deposited her on the cratch floor. Cant blame her for being a bit cautious after that I suppose.

Although we could have stayed 2 days and it would have been interesting to explore the town we decided to press on and moored last night at Honey Street. The good news, easy firm mooring, room to get in, right outside a pub. The bad news, it was Saturday night and that was live music night and the music (I use the word loosely) went on until midnight. The fact that we had both developed coughs as well didn’t help but other than that it was a very peaceful mooring and the food we had at lunch was good quality pub grub. 

So we moved on again this morning, my cough slightly improved but Sarah feeling like death. The initial plan had been to move on about 4 lock free miles with just 2 swing bridges and moor up on the visitor moorings at Bishops Cannings. The good news, we got to both swing bridges at exactly the right time, a boat coming the other way having opened them for us and in one instance closing it as well, the bad news - guess what - the visitor moorings were again full with non movers. Time for a rant. This canal seems to have more than its share of inconsiderate residential boaters who care nothing for the rest of us. They obviously don’t move anywhere and it would be bad enough if they were out on rough moorings but to hog the small number of visitor moorings is just so inconsiderate. To add insult to injury many of them are not even licenced. In our 3 hour cruise today I counted ELEVEN boats that were either not displaying a licence or had one that was out of date. Come on CaRT do something about it. Rant over.

So we soldiered on to Devizes hoping that there would be space there, if not it meant that we would be doing the Caen flight of 29 locks which with our level of health was not a comforting thought. Thankfully there was space, the moorings are sound and we can spend 72 hours here which we intend to do to try to recover from the ague which plagues us and then attack the flight.

One of the famous white horses

Alton Barnes Saxon church - check out the paving across the field to help you to heaven. It was probably a 1/4 mile  long from the village

T n T's bed looking more like a howdah. Just after taking this pic a gust of wind ripped the umbrella out of the clips but somehow I managed to catch it as it disappeared over my head. Need to rethink the design!

A novel form of narrowboat - a converted lifeboat