Post-Easter Cruise 2014 - Definitely downhill

We left Worcester at 8.10a.m. on another grey morning. The St George’s flag on the cathedral is at half-mast for Denise Inge.

Only Diglis Lock today before arriving at Tewkesbury at 11.40.  We moored below the Avon Lock on the Old Avon and after lunch went for a wander around Tewkesbury. There was a wedding about to start at the Abbey so we contented ourselves with going to the tea-room for more coffee and cake, and then having a bit of a wander around the town.

The blog titles yesterday and today both give an indication that it is quite a novel experience going twice as fast as usual because we are on a river rather than a canal. 6 mph is almost hairy!

Back to the boat for the evening.

Post-Easter Cruise 2014 - Speedy Gonzales!

Off we set at 7.50a.m. on a misty, moisty morning.  Only 3 locks today, all manned by the friendly Severn lock-keepers.  The mist cleared, but the weather remained moist!  There are several signs of the winter floods on the river – fallen trees along the bank and exposed soil where the land has slipped.

We arrived at Worcester at 10.50a.m. and moored up near the railway bridge as we have done before.  You now pay your mooring fee by buying a ticket at the Pay and Display Car Park across the road. Although still cloudy, the weather remained dry for the rest of the day.

We wandered up to the Hive for coffee and cake, checked the whereabouts of the local Wetherspoons and returned to the car park to meet Jan and Ian James.  After a short sit down on the boat, we all went for lunch at said Wetherspoons – The Crown, and then back to the Hive for coffee and cake as The Crown had run out of carrot cake!

Ian and Jan left at 3.15p.m. and we returned to the boat.  We skipped supper as we had consumed rather a lot of cake today and instead walked a little more of the Severn Way, upstream towards Bevere Lock, though we didn’t get that far.  Again, there seem to be only a few boats around – we are the only ones on the town mooring. The evenings are chilly, so we lit the fire.

Post-Easter Cruise 2014 - To the river

We set out from Kinver at 7.35a.m. – weather was dry with a little early morning mist.  The sun soon came out and, despite the weather forecast, the whole day was sunny and warm.  We had help from a cheerful volunteer (unofficial) at Wolverley Court Lock and more volunteers (official) were on hand at Stourport.  There were more boats and fewer ducklings around than yesterday.

We made good time and moored up on the river at 1.15p.m.  After a little lunch, we wandered up into Stourport.  It appears to be Stourport Heritage Day; the Old Ticket Office on York Street was open so we had a brief look round there.  We had the news yesterday that Bp John’s wife, Denise, had died so we spent some time trying to find a card to send, finally finding one I considered suitable in the Hospice Shop.

 Following a cream tea at Blossoms, we headed back to the river, calling in at the Old Tontine Stables (another Heritage site) on the way.  We also saw Arthur Page and Elaine (another friend) who both promised to call in later, which they did.

After supper, we decided to head out again, so walked along the Severn Way as far as Lincomb Lock.

Post-Easter Cruise 2014 - Off we go

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.

A Day of Rest and Refreshment

Our post-Easter break is coming to and end but, before so doing, we took the opportunity to worship at St. Peter's Church in Kinver. It is a steep walk up to the church but it was well worth it for the service and the friendly welcome we received.

After church we walked up to Kinver Edge to hunt out a few elusive geocaches, fitting in coffee and cake at the cafe at the Rock Houses. We returned to Chyandour by about 2.00pm and Stephen cut up some of the logs he had spotted close to our mooring.

It was really nice to be able to sit outside with the doors open for a while and enjoy the warmth of the sun.

An Uphill Day

At last! A sunny day with no wind - almost warm, in fact. We left the mooring on the river and started to work up the two narrow staircases of Stourport Basin at about 8.30am. We needed to fill with water and get rid of some rubbish, so stopped at the sani-station in the upper basin. We got away from there and started up York Street lock about 9.15am.

There were quite a few more boats around and we eventually arrived and moored up by Sainsbury's in Kidderminster by about 12.00noon. Some shopping and lunch were necessary.

We made good time to our target for the day - Kinver, arriving just before 4.00pm but had a bit of to-ing and fro-ing so that we could get a decent satellite signal before finally mooring. We walked into the village in the evening for a very good meal at The White Harte.

Two Easy Days

We wanted to spend a day in Worcester so, no boating on Thursday. Weather-wise it was not as bright as the previous few days, but still dry and cold with a very chilly wind. We had a good day visiting The Hive, The Commandery and Greyfriars, all of which were very worthwhile.

Friday was again cold with a lot of cloud. We chose to move up the river to Stourport-on-Severn, leaving Worcester about 8.00am and arriving at Stourport at 12.10pm. The river was flowing quite strongly and that slowed progress quite considerably. We spent the afternoon wandering around Stourport following a multi- geocache trail and succeeded in finding the elusive final location after a couple of false starts. Stephen then washed the boat before our evening meal.

A Purposeful Day

It was another cold, bright morning with a good coating of frost everywhere. Stephen got up quite late (for him) and we left the mooring at Stoke Prior around 7.30am. The frost meant there was to be no roof-walking for 2 or 3 hours and, as we were going downhill, this meant hauling Chyandour out of each lock.

Gwyneth emerged after only the first lock (having made cups of tea and fed the cat - yes, Susie is with us again!). We stopped at Hanbury for coffee and then had lunch at Tibberton before starting down Otherton lock flight. As we had done reasonably well, we decided to try to get to Worcester so we could have a full day there tomorrow.

The weather was again fine for working locks, dry and sunny, although the North-east wind picked up during the day and ended up quite a bit stronger than yesterday.

We crossed paths with another couple from BCF (Michael & Janet Jefferies) in their boat Shekinah who were in the process of traversing the Droitwich Ring. Apart from them there was next to nothing coming up, so there had to be a lot of lock filling!

We had invaluable assistance from a very nice man at Diglis. He is a continuous cruiser and was moored there in the basin. He had been helping folk through the locks if he was around, and proceeded to do that for us. Whilst we worked the top lock he set the river lock and then closed the bottom gates of both. This was especially helpful to Gwyneth as the gates are so heavy.

Stephen took Chyandour out downstream into the fairly strong flow of the river which, together with the wind, meant picking up speed quite quickly. He steered down into the lock channel so that he could wind in the lee of the island and come back upstream to collect Gwyneth from the lock landing.

Upstream was slow against the flow and the wind but we arrived at the visitor moorings by the railway bridge just before 6.00pm.

An evening walk into Worcester with a meal at The Crown (Wetherspoons) rounded off a purposeful day.

A Long Day

Day dawned bright but very cold. Stephen got up early and made a start at about 6.50am. Gwyneth stayed in bed (no locks to do - yet) but, after about half an hour the prop got thoroughly fouled with heavy-duty plastic bags, so Gwyneth got herself out of bed and made refreshing cups of tea!

There was quite a lot of ice about but, once the prop had been cleared, we made good progress and arrived at the top of Tardebigge locks at 11.50am.

We decided that we would rather do the flight during the afternoon than start first thing in the morning. As it turned out we did really well - we had an early lunch and started into the top lock at 12.30pm, finishing the 30 locks at 4.45pm. We had to fill all but 2 of them and, for most of the flight, we were the second of three boats going down. We met nothing coming up so, by helping each other (closing bottom gates for the boat in front) we worked out a good routine.

It was actually a very good day for doing locks - dry, sunny and cold - working 30 locks soon warms you up!

After tea we went for a walk around Stoke Prior, and Stephen managed to bag a geocache on the way - all very pleasant.

A Different Day

Good morning, world. Are you ready for us?

Today is a bit different - in fact it's quite a lot different. We have this appointment in the Bradford area at about 1.30pm, but we are in Birmingham.

So, there has to be "a plan"!

Hopefully Gwyneth will arrive by road within the next hour or so, and we will then travel to Bradford by road,(having done a few bits of local shopping - Taybrite, for instance).

After the party - yes, a party - we shall return home in the early evening, and a friend will bring us (and the cat) back to nb Chyandour ready for a good night's sleep and a relatively early start tomorrow.

Well, that is the plan. Now we shall see how it works out . . .

A New Year - A New Journey

Easter was very early this year, which means that our Easter Cruise may have to be curtailed or altered due to adverse weather or canal / river conditions.

In preparation, a few weeks ago, David and I took nb Chyandour from Wombourne to Oxley Marine for various small jobs and a new leisure battery. Then two weeks ago, I brought the boat from Oxley Marine to Withymoor Island at Netherton so that I could start the main cruise on Easter Sunday afternoon.

And that is what I did this afternoon. After the Easter worship at both churches, I was able to finish loading the boat and get away by 1.40pm.

There was a bit of floating ice, but nothing to be too worrying. I had to rethink this a bit at the North end of Netherton Tunnel where the ice was from side to side between the tunnel end and the aqueduct. Fortunately there was no depth to it, so I could move forward quite easily.

The journey really was uneventful and I met only two boats going the other way. For various reasons we wanted to moor around Cambrian Basin and there was an empty space at the end which was just the right size. So I winded and reversed in and was moored up by 5.05pm.

Our friends in nb Epiphany are moored just a few berths along, and I was able to spend a couple of hours with them over a drink and a cream scone after they returned from their day out. I think I will sleep well tonight!