Set off from Wombourne at 1.30p.m. when it was just starting
to rain. It then rained, more or less heavily, for the rest of the journey to
Kinver. At Marsh Lock we saw our first ducklings – literally in the lock, while
Mum quacked uselessly on the bank. The
lock was nearly full, so I gently filled it and opened the gate so that the
ducklings could escape and rejoin Mum. Stephen drove the boat in and was joined
by one duckling! It took us a minute or
two to catch him and put him back on the bank with the rest of the family
before we could proceed. We managed the
rest of the locks with no duck incidents.
There were very few boats about considering it is the Easter
weekend – we didn't see anyone to talk to until Stewponey Lock where nb
Keynsham was coming up. There had obviously been other boats up and down as one
or two locks were almost full when we arrived at them. After Keynsham left, and
just as I was closing the top gate, another boat arrived to go down. Quite unusually, although the woman from that
boat came up to the lock with her windlass, she just leaned on the top gate and
watched me work both bottom gates (including closing them after us) on my own.
At Kinver Lock, we met some folk out for a walk, a local
couple with some French visitors. They helped work the lock and took lots of
photographs – explaining the working of a lock in English can be challenging,
in French it involves a lot of hand waving!
There were several duck families in Kinver, none of whom had
the suicidal tendencies of the Marsh family, though our bow did manage to
briefly split up one lot.
Arrived at the visitor moorings below Kinver at 5.45p.m. It
was then more or less dry as we sorted ourselves out, but later in the evening
there were several heavy showers.
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