We have been here for three days. It’s a great place to moor, though there is some noise from the clubs and bars. Bristol’s harbourside is very much at the heart of the city’s social life. Up until the nineteen sixties it was a busy working docks, but the tidal nature of the river Avon
Well we are here at last! It’s been a really great day, the weather has been warm with blue skies, though the strong wind hasn’t helped at times. We set off around seven and descended the Widcombe flight in Bath. One of the locks here is 19 feet deep, making it one of the deepest
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
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
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
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
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
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
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