Back ‘home’

Only just under two hours cruising today. Starting off at 7:10 we were quickly through the swing bridges. The level in the river was low enough that we cleared the M5 tunnel with about an inch to spare. Into the marina, pack up and off home

Netherwich Basin

After an excellent evening with Simon & Karen yesterday we said our goodbyes this morning at seven o’clock and set off. We reached Stourport about 9:30 and were down onto the river by ten. It’s been another really hot day, but travelling down stream was pleasantly cool with a lovely breeze Hawford junction was reached

Wolverley Court Lock

We were in constant WhatsApp communication with Karen & Simon regarding tonight’s rendezvous. We settled on Wolverley Court lock as it was within reach of both of us. We made good progress, even though we had to ‘turn’ every lock. We arrived here at about 1:30 in time for a late lunch, they arrived about

Bottom of Bratch locks

Again an early start, 7:10am, to try to beat the hot weather. Down the rest of the Wolverhampton flight was reasonably OK, though we did have to turn a few of them. Two locks before the end an upcoming boater had emptied the lock before us without me noticing. He didn’t bother to look ahead.

Wolverhampton lock no 7

Another early start as the weather forecast is for another hot day. We left at 6:50. It’s been a really quiet day boatwise. All the way through the centre of Birmingham and out to Wolverhampton we have only passed three moving boats. Since we moored up another has passed us. We came along the old

Lower Bittel Reservoir

Friends Andrew & Sheila joined us today to help us up Tardebigge locks. There are 30 locks in just less than 2 miles. Sheila dropped Andrew off at 8:00 and drove up to the top of the flight and walked back down to meet us. So with a crew of three we set off. Having

Queens Head

The weather recently has been very hot, the whole country seems to be experiencing a bit of Mediterranean sunshine. So we decided to set off early before it got too hot, we knew that we had 15 locks to do today ( 30 tomorrow!). So we left the marina at 7:45, up the three Droitwich

Droitwich Marina

We hadn’t decided which way to go back, but as we were already past the W&B lock entrance, and we hadn’t gone up the Droitwich canals since 2011 we chose to carry on up the Severn to Hawford. Also this meant that we avoided to two large locks up into Diglis basin that I struggle

Worcester

There weather forecast was right, it was really cold for most of the way. We set off at 6:50 and locked out from the docks down on to the Severn at just after 9 o’clock. This journey starts off going up the “parting” which is a narrow bywater off of the main river. It’s narrower

Parkend

We moved up from Splatt bridge to just north of Parkend bridge. From here up to Gloucester we can get under the next three bridges. So this means that we can start off early in the morning before the bridge keepers come on duty. The weather forecast for tomorrow is dry but not warm for