Narrowboat Just Heaven

The day started cold and wet, though the rain wasn’t as heavy as yesterday. We went up through the staircases and into the basin. Breakfast was taken on the services pontoon while we waited for Limekiln to open, as we needed to top up the diesel. An uneventful run up to the home mooring at Kinver where we arrived about one o’clock. Lunch, pack up and off home.

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The river had changed completely, smooth and as flat as a millpond. We were away by 6:20. We weren’t the only early birds as we shared Strensham lock with another narrowboat, but they were only aiming for Tewkesbury. We made good progress and got to Tewsesbury by 9:30. When we got there the BP boat “Robyn” was moored up with the occupants apparently still in bed. Why did they risk the river in the red last night if they weren’t in a hurry? We were out onto the Severn just after ten o’clock.

 

Until then the weather had been good, but almost as soon as we were on the Severn it started to rain, lightly at first, but then heavier and heavier. At Worcester we took on water and grabbed a bite to eat whilst it filled, then pressed on as we wanted to get to Stourport in case the Severn level came up overnight.

We got to Stourport about 5:30 by now the rain was really heavy, we were cold, tired and wet having been travelling for 11 hours, 7 of them in the rain. There was just enough space on the floating pontoon visitor’s moorings so we moored up and had hot showers and a glass of wine.
A little later on a Viking Afloat boat came down the staircase locks onto the river. They could see that there wasn’t room for them on the pontoon unless they overlapped into the “reserved for lock use” area. They were reluctant to moor there overnight, but it was nearly dark, raining very heavily and there wasn’t really anywhere else for them to go. I said that in their position I would moor up and if a boat came along to use the lock invite it to breast up with them. However another boater told them that they couldn’t stay there so they went off down river. About 20 mins later a Black Prince boat came up river and moored up in the same place and stayed there all night!

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Overnight the river rose more and was now in the red on the gauge. Teresa & Lindsay needed to be at Tewkesbury by early afternoon. It looked very unlikely that we would be able to make that so, reluctantly they ordered a taxi to pick them up at noon. Meanwhile we took a walk up the hill to have a look around Pershore College garden centre.

Across the road between the old bridge and the new bridge there is a picnic site with toilets. On the wall of the toilets is a plaque showing the level of the floods in 2007. This was as a result of a single day’s rain!
The building is over ten feet above the normal river level so the water must have been about twenty feet above normal.

After T & L had left we walked into Pershore again to do some food shopping as we thought that we might be here for several days. The level continued to rise until about four o’clock when it started to fall. In the evening there were a few boat movements. Four narrowboats from Braunston, who were travelling togther, came up the river. They were pushing hard against the current and making slow headway. Later at about 6ix o’clock The Black Prince boat “Robyn”, that we had shared the lock with yesterday, came downstream. As they went round the corner the boat was taken sideways by the current. I wouldn’t want to do the Swan’s Neck like that! I suppose they had to get back to the hire base on time. We had an early night as we had decided to make an early start the next morning to try to get up at least to Worcester.

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It had rained heavily during the night and the sky was grey & foreboding so we set off around eight o’clock. The aim was to get to pershore for the night. On the way up we had seen good moorings at Pershore Recreation Ground so that’s where we were heading for

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By the time we got to Evesham we had had some spots of rain, but not too bad. We stopped to use the free pumpout machine near Glovers island. Whilst we were pumping out the rain started to get heavier. On the section before Fladbury lock the intensity of the rain increase, and as went down the reach from Fladbury to Wyre Lock the heavens opened and we had about half an hour of some of the heaviest rain Ive ever seen! We shared Wyre lock with a young couple on a Black Prince Hire boat (Robyn). They left the lock before us and took the last available space at the Recreation Ground, so we went down through Pershore Lock and moored up just below Pershore bridges. By this time the flow was getting noticable stronger and the level gauge was in the “amber”. We were cold and wet like drowned rats!

Growing on tree at the picnic site we found these bracket fungi, there were also some on the ground. They smelt delicious, but we were too scared to try cooking them!

The gauge was by now just in the orange and the river was rising so we decided to stay put until the morning. The weather had improved a lot so the afternoon was spent wandering around the town of Pershore. We went to have a look at the abbey, but as we approached the door we were told it was just closing.
In the evening we cooked a barbecue outside but ate inside. The wind was blowing strongly so we had to rig up a makeshift windbreak. Not easy when you cant hammer the poles into concrete.

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We were awoken in the night by some loud young men from a boat about 100yds away who were swimming across the river at 4:30 in the morning!

A lazy start today. We got up and went for a walk along the riverside to the bridge below Colin P. Witter lock and back up through the churchyard. When the building work is finished you will be able to walk along between the river and the theatre, but at the moment it’s a building site. In Bancroft gardens there was a street market selling a wide range of upmarket stuff, mostly for the tourist trade. We whiled away nearly an hour here then when back to the boat for a cooked breakfast. After a while relaxing, sitting in the sun, soaking up the atmosphere, we topped up the water and headed back downstream.

The afternoon was warm and sunny and we had a great run down to Bidford, more enjoyable than the trip up without the pressure of the day before.

We arrived at Bidford about 15:30, it was a lovely afternoon so we had a Pimms sitting at one of the picnic benches. Later, after a short walk around the village, we had a barbecue in the warm evening air.

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For almost ten years now Teresa has wanted to arrive in Stratford by boat, well at last we have achieved it! Though it was after a fairly hectic day. We started early and moved up to Evesham lock by about 8:20. The lock is keeper operated and doesnt open until 9:00, so we had our breakfast whilst waiting. We locked through with NB Prometheus from Saul Junction. They were a young family with many years experience of boating on the Avon. The lock keeper told us that heavy rain was expected, with the Environment Agency putting out a severe weather warning. Together with the crew of Prometheus we decided to go non-stop for Stratford where we would be able to get off the river and onto the canal. So it was a longish day pushing hard against the current. We shared all the locks with Prometheus and together we made an efficient team.

The current was strong in some places, but the gauges were in the “green” all the way and when we arrived in Stratford the water was calm and peaceful, so we decided to moor opposite the RSC theatre. It was great atmosphere with lots of people enjoying the sunshine, the trip boats going up and down and people in rowing boats etc.

We went for a wander around the town to find the restaurant where we had booked a table for the evening meal. It was lucky that we didn’t need to get up onto the canal because Bancroft basin was full, with several hire boats arriving and looking for mooring space. The evening was finished off with a meal at Cafe Rouge and another pleasant wander back though the town in the warm evening air.

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The sky was clear and blue as we set off for our first trip up the Avon. After about an hour we met our first Avon lock at Strensham. The approach was a little odd with a swing footbridge across the entrance. We also had to get used to the fast flowing weir currents and the Avon convention of leaving the exit gate open.

I was a little concerned about finding mooring places as we had been warned that they were in short supply. So the first task was to find somewhere for breakfast. We came under Eckington bridge to see two narrowboats at the wharf with just about enough space for us to squeeze in on the end. We had to tie the bow rope on to a nearby tree root as we were off the end of the moorings proper. On the reach from Nafford to Pershore we saw a black swan. These are native to Australia, so i assume that this one is an escapee.

We shared Pershore and Wyre locks with a GRP cruiser. The guy from the cruiser was rather paranoid that we might damage his boat. I can understand him being wary, but with a crew of four we had plenty of hands to ensure that we were roped up correctly.

The cruiser stopped soon after Wyre lock and for the rest of the day we did the locks alone. I was pleased to see that there more mooring places than I had been led to believe. On the lower Avon these are all marked with blue posts.

We moored for the night at Workman Gardens in the centre of Evesham.

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We had arranged to pick up Teresa & Lindsay at Tewkesbury Marina at about 17:30.  As that should only have been about 6.5 hours cruising we had a late start and did a few jobs and washed one side of the boat before setting off at 10 o’clock. The weather was good and it we were having a pleasant run down to to Worcester. At Holt lock the locky warned us that there might be delays at Bevere Lock as the top paddle was broken and they were filling the lock with pumps. When we got there there were three boats waiting but no space for us. With a bit of shuffling along we slotted in between two. I could see the six huge diesel pumps filling the lock. Two boats came out and two more went in. Then three more hire boats arrived. One of them a Black Prince one got himself in a complete mess trying to come alongside another waiting boat. At one point he was directly across the river with his bow pushed up against the bollards protecting the weir. It took us just over an hour to get through the lock, so now we were behind schedule.

We stopped briefly at Worcester where we topped up the water and had lunch whilst it was filling. The rest of the journey down was uneventful until Upton upon Severn where it started to rain. It rained hard then for the rest of the day. We got to Avon Lock at Tewkesbury just after five. The locky came out in the pouring rain to deal with us and was very friendly and helpful. He relieved me of £45.00 for the ANT licence and we chugged a couple of hundred yards up the the marina’s visitor moorings where T & L were waiting for us.

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I spent most of yesterday afternoon installing a new calorifier. The previous repair had lasted about a month, but then it started leaking somewhere else so we decided it wasn’t worth trying to repair it again. I bought a new one from Surejust who were extremely helpful and patient with my many queries.

The install went fairly well even though the working space in the cupboard is vary limited.

We set out after lunch and made good progress down to Stourport. The intention was to moor overnight on the river pontoons, but when we got there all the space was taken. We carried on through Lincomb Lock to the pub moorings at Hampstall ferry. It looked like there was no space here too as the Edward Elgar trip boat was taking up about half the space and a couple of cruisers the rest. As we hovered about looking for a space the captain of the Edward Elgar called out “If you’re looking for a space, I’m leaving in 20 to 30 mins”. So we tied up temporarily and waited. Well it was almost an hour before his elderly customers tottered down the ramp from the pub and climbed aboard.

We moored up and I went into the pub to see what the arrangements were. It’s £10.00 per night, or free if you take a meal in the pub, so we ate in the pub !

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