Up earlyish and had breakfast before 8:00 so we could be ready when the bridgekeeper came on duty. Heddi walked to Sainsbury’s to get a few things and I followed with the boat after the bridge had opened. We called the lock keeper who said that we may have to wait as they had some “work flats” going though and he didnt want to empty the lock too many times as the river level was rather low. When we arrived the lock gates were open and there was a small work boat already in the lock attached to some pontoons lashed together. I expected to have to wait for more work boats, but we locked down straight away. We overtook the work boat as we left the lock. he was going very slowly trying to push the pontoons against the current.

Unlike our previous trips up river the current was fairly slow and the GPS showed us doing about 4.2mph up to the parting and around 4.8 -5.0 on the main river. At this speed we knew that we should in in Worcester by mid afternoon.

The weather was really hot and we were glad of the breeze to keep us cool, the cows were stood in the water cooling their feet.

We arrived in Worcester about 3:30, picked up water at the point near the trip boats and went off to find somehere to moor. We prefer the mooring upstraem of the boat clubs. It’s quieter there than by the Sabrina bridge. The mooring were much busier than we have seen them before, we did find a space, but it wasnt ideal.

What we hadn’t reaslised was that the racing would be on and it was Ladies Day. The weather was much kinder than for our visit last year.
It was rather noisy as we had moored close to one of the PA speakers for the races, but by about 6 o’clock it had finished. We went for a walk later and were astounded by all the mess left around by the race goers. All credit to the race organisers though. They had an army of cleaners working throughout the evening and it was all gone by the morning.