Hempstead Bridge

An early start, we were on our way by 6:15. Becca was still in bed until we got to Stourport. On the Severn it was windy and rather chilly, but an uneventful cruise down. We stopped briefly at Worcester for a cooked breakfast and to top up the water. The stretch of Severn from Worcester to Gloucester is not very interesting, especially the Upper Lode lock to the upper parting reach. It is particularly not enjoyable when the weather is bad. This time it wasn’t raining, but there was a cold head wind. Becca was very good and steered for quite a lot of the way.
We shared Diglis lock with a small cruiser, but when we were due to leave the cruiser’s engine wouldn’t start. This was further confused by the two narrowboats waiting to come up getting blown across the font of the lock by the strong wind. The only way they could avoid the wind was by entering the lock, which they did as we left, but the cruiser was still in there. Not wanting to hang about in the wind I pulled off quickly leaving them to it. The cruiser didnt pass us until several hours later.
We made good progress with the GPS showing between 5.5 and 6 mph most of the way, this was despite very little flow on the river. On arrival at Gloucester lock just after 5:00pm we expected to have to wait, but we locked up almost immediately with cruiser that had the engine problems at Diglis.
As we were locking up we saw friends Andrew & Sheila waving at us. They had just driven from Stourport to Gloucester, i.e. the same journey that we had made, but by car. We pulled into one of the pontoon mooring for a quick chat with them. Then Heddi & Becca went to the Gloucester Quays shopping centre and I took the boat down to Sainbury’s do do some food shopping.

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