Bath top lock

A slightly frustrating day dealing with less than competent narrowboat helmspersons! We started out early at just before 7:00 am. Those aboard “The Bath Tub” seemed to be still in bed. It was a lovely morning, we saw several kingfishers. From Bradford-on-Avon onwards things started to go dowhill.After Bradford town lock there are miles of

Seend bottom lock

Only 3.9 mile but 28 locks today. The C&RT guys opened the locks up at 11:00 and with Larry and Fiona on Amelie May we were the first boats down the flight. We worked though as an efficient team and completed the 23 locks on just over three hours. We had to fill almost every

Still here

Only about half a mile and five locks today. The damaged lock won’t be repaired for several days so we have moved partway down the flight, along with two other boats, to make more room at the top for any boats that arrive to queue up. It’s quite a bit quieter here, though further to

Devizes

We dropped down three locks then into the “long pound”. This is about 15 miles long and was deliberately engineered by the canal’s designer John Rennie to provide a reservoir for the Caen Hill flight at Devizes. The canal winds it’s way through the lovely Vale of Pewsey. We managed to catch a glimpse of

Wootton Rivers

We have made really good progress today, 10 miles and twenty locks. The locks have been relatively easy, or is it just that we are getting used to them?. As usual we made an early start at around seven thirty, the sky was grey with drizzly rain. This lasted most of the day on and

Hungerford

It had rained on and off during the night, and the weather forecasts for today weren’t too good. Metcheck said rain most of the day, but BBC Weather just said grey skies, so we chose that one (and they were right!). Another early start, we had breakfast and were away just after 7:00. The locks

Long Cut Swing Bridge

The Kennet Navigation is delightful. It’s made up of sections of the natural course of the river Kennet and sections of artificial cut. But even the man-made canal sections are very natural looking, so sometimes it’s difficult to know which you are on. There is plenty of wildlife, we have seen herons, kingfishers and an

Reading Jail

Now moored up just outside Reading Jail after a varied and interesting day. We set off just before 8:00 under grey skies and drizzly rain, but it cheered up and the sun eventually came out. We shared the first three locks with NB Sulis. After chatting with James & Albert on Sulis we discovered that

Wallingford

A superb day’s boating on the Thames from Oxford to Wallingford. Isis lock from the Oxford Canal out onto the Thames: We were waiting at Osney lock at 9:00 for the lock keepeer to come on duty. He relieved us of £36 for our Thames licence and we were on our way.Just above Osney lock

Oxford

We are moored by bridge 239A just short of the end of the Oxford canal. It’s been a long day. We set off at 6:45am and didn’t moor up until about 6:00pm. All was going great until about 4:30, when we hit the twin problems of a long string of no mooring, due to permenant