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 ‘continious moorers’, boats that dont have a permenant mooring and abuse the 14 day rule, which says that you can only stay in one place for up to 14 days. This means passing them involves long periods of slow progress at tick-over.
Looking over Dundas Aqueduct
We also encountered several hire boats whicj were going very slowly. Two boats had onboard a group of young men who appeared to be on a stag week, or similar sort of outing. They clearly had not steered a narrowboat before and were making a complete hash of it, including crashing into other boats. They stopped at the pub at Bathampton so we left them behind, but soon caught up with an other boat steered by some girls (young women) who were going just as slow. Eventually we arrived at a very pleasant mooring just above Bath top lock , so decided to stay here for the day.
Friends Jan & Mike called to find out where we were and joined us around fiveish, we later enjoyed a barbecue in the late evening sun with stunning views over the lovely city of Bath.