10 locks 7 miles
Another earlish start. Up through lock 60, then topped up with water. The water point here must be one of the worst positioned on the whole network! It’s immediately above the lock on the off side, but there is only about 40ft of actual mooring space. So the front of the boat was in amonst reeds and stinging nettles. Ours, like most boats, has the water filler at the front so I had to climb throgh the undergrowth and somehow pass the hosepipe to Heddi who was stood on the front of the boat.
The following four locks are all of the ones that have to be left empty, so they were all ready for us. The water level in last pound between locks 56 & 55 was very low. Probably 2 foot below normal. I thought that we might get stuck on the bottom, but we didnt.
As we reached the summit and approched the tunnel it started to drizzle with rain. On emerging the other end of the tunnel the rain became much harder requiring full waterproof gear!
At Wotton Rivers top lock we met a couple with a GRP cruiser. He said that it was really a sea going boat and the outboard motor wasn’t suitable for the canals. So he was pulling by hand to Pewsey where there is a slipway. A friend would then come along with a trailer to take it to Watchet where he could re-launch it.
We shared the first lock with them and feeling a bit guilty, left them pulling the boat along by hand.
We arrived about 11:30 at Pewsey Wharf and found a space on the new visitor’s mooring. After lunch we walked the 1/2 mile or so into the small town of Pewsey where I bought some drill bits to have another go at getting the old screws out of the broken fairlead.
On the way back from Pewsey we found the “King Alfred’s Trail”. A very pleasant walk via a nature reserve.