Newbury to Hungerford - and a very convivial evening

After two nights in Newbury it was time to move on - and fortuitously we'd missed having to travel on Tuesday when the heavens opened and didn't relent until the evening.  Wednesday was a perfect temperature for boating and lock working - mostly sunny but not too warm.

Driving through Newbury wasn't quite such a spectator sport as Reading, but you do travel through the town centre, under the lovely bridge where shoppers walk over along the High Street - so the canal is very much a part of the town.

 

 

 

 

 

September's Canal Boat magazine - 'Pride and Joy' is the article about us - cool aye?!

 

 

 

 

 

  The canal in Newbury is full of all kinds of ducks - even pigeons are trying to get in on the act!

Not just children out enjoying the canal-side ...

there was even a fishermen in the town - and he was friendly!

Looking through Newbury's stone built bridge to the lock

And a close up of the beautiful bridge in colour

Driving under the bridge and straight into the lock

Looking back at Newbury

Informative board next to Newbury Lock

They certainly embrace the canal and the fact that it's contributed hugely to the town of today, though it was only by a concerted effort by a man called John Gould that the Kennet and Avon was saved from dereliction some years ago.  Twenty years after the final section of the canal was re-opened, it's under consultation to be reclassified as part of the 'cruising network' - apparently BW make no distinction with regards to maintenance whether it's classified as such or as a 'remainder' waterway, but by the state of many of the locks we've encountered to date I'd question this!

Leaving the swing bridge and Newbury behind (until our return journey!)

    Crossing under the busy A34 & 'Kia ora' to the kiwi's from Taupo who we met along the way

Waiting for one of the twelve locks of the day to empty

 

 

 

Another pretty journey in our parallel universe

 

 

 

Hampstead Bridge and lock

There had been a widebeam boat (Rebecca) moored up behind us while we were in Newbury, and we'd chatted to the two brothers on board a couple of times (well I thought they were brothers but they turned out to be father and son).  They left an hour or so ahead of us on Tuesday but we caught them up at one of the locks.  Their boat is one of four that The Bruce Trust, a non-profit making company, have available to hire out to 'disabled, disadvantaged or elderly people'.

Dave and his crew are from Worthing, near to Brighton, and had the boat for a week.  Prior to hiring it Dave had to go on a weekend residential course to ensure he was capable of managing such a boat - he said he'd been a bit sceptical about it at first but afterwards was amazed at how much knowledge he'd gained and how helpful it was when travelling on the boat and working out it's internal intricacies.

We followed them for the remainder of the day, until we reached Hungerford which was our destination too.  I walked for much of the way, and did a bit of stretching yoga exercises at some of the locks (when I knew no-one was around!) as I must lose some weight.  It's been creeping on as we've been eating far too many naughty things like cakes, biscuits, chocolate and crisps, while not really doing much in the way of exercise!  We'll see how long it lasts ...

Catching up with WB Rebecca and crew

Lovely 'More wood' at Copse Lock! 

Looks like we've turned back the clocks to a bygone era

One gate shut, now walk over the lock gate to shut the other one, then open the paddles - all good exercise and so much more fun than a gym!

Here's a rare sight!  Maybe we have literally gone back in time?

It's a trip boat from Kintbury (Kennet Horse Boat company) - awesome!

I think the flowery shorts may give the game (and century) away!

How about that for a rudder?  Very colourful old boat, great to see it being used

This poor old lady got a bit stuck and had to negotiate a passage behind the horse without falling into the canal inches away!  Is that horse smiling?

A 2 hour trip from Kintbury to Dreweat's Lock, descend, leave, turn around, then ascend and back to Kintbury

  Shepherd's Bridge - two boats coming at us so we had to hover for a while

 Almost time for us to go through

A leafy glade approaching Kintbury - a busy canal today

The outskirts of Kintbury, and Kintbury Bridge and Lock

A couple of grand homes overlooking the canal in Kintbury

A boat-ful of kids out on their summer holidays

Looks like a snowy winters day at the lock - sadly we'll be gone before the snow comes (says Barry, not Sandra!)

There's some old locks and bridges on this canal

And a variety of gate paddles

Elaine, Dave's wife, kindly invited us to dinner aboard their boat that evening and we most gratefully accepted - it's not often that we get to go on other people's boats and we'd never been inside a widebeam before.  Dave and his family seemed such lovely people too, so we thought it'd be very pleasant to get to know them better - and we were proved correct!  What a friendly, happy family they were - thank you all, we really enjoyed your company - and of course a bonus was we learnt a new card game 'UNO' - thanks Brad!

Despite the delightful company, we possibly foolishly suggested that we all played Barry's card game which may've been a little bit too complex for a larger group to learn whilst under the influence of Barry's boat brew (apart from Tom and Brad of course!)!

 Station Bridge, just outside Hungerford, where we topped up with water

Coming into Hungerford under the bridge carrying the main road to Salisbury

Mooring up for the night a short walk from the town centre

 

 

So much more room in a widebeam

 

 

 

Emma, Tom, Glen, Dave, Elaine, Brad and Sandra

Brilliant evening light shines on Hungerford Town Bridge

We didn't get back to the boat until almost 0100hrs after a wonderful evening, so there may be a bit of a lie-in on Wednesday before a stroll into Hungerford to check it out ...

A rose by any other name!

Overwhelmed, overboard and in 'Canal Boat'!

Oh my goodness!  What an outpouring of comments we received after my ramblings on Saturday's blog - thank you to everyone who sent us positive feedback, it's really good to know our time and trouble is appreciated and that our writing and photos bring you some pleasure; we're overwhelmed and very humbled.

We usually don't post at the end of each day's travels (unless it's regarding the previous day's adventures) because we take a our time over each entry until we're happy with it, and when we have visitors (which are wonderful) we get even more behind - but we're determined to keep it up, at least until we have to sell the boat and return to NZ at the end of October.  Having said that, we're being deluged by visitors over the next few weeks so apologies in advance if posts are slow - we'll be entertaining and being entertained!

We also had a link sent by Tony, one of our readers from USA, for the Dutch Barge we moored in front of at Mapledurham last Friday night - Libertijn - and Mike from 'NB Guelrose' kindly informed us it's one of many such vessels making its way to the IWA festival at Beale Park on the August Bank Holiday weekend.  It's palatial inside - seriously, check out the marble bath - quite unnerving to have such opulence in comparison to narrowboats, and I seriously wouldn't want to negotiate the British waterways on it (even the Thames).  I'm sure it's fabulous on the European wide canals though, and every one has different preferences (and vitally finances available!) - it would be a boring world if we were all had similar tastes and bank balances!

We left our rural mooring fairly early on Monday at around 1030hrs, and fortuitously Jon and his crew (he'd had a changeover so new folks on board) arrived as we entered the first lock - it was excellent to have another boat to share the work with and great to have the camaraderie.

 

 

 

Lots of widebeam boats on the Kennet and Avon as it's a broad canal

 

 

 

Even Jon's 70ft boat is dwarfed in this monster lock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many hands make light work!

 

 

 

Lots of swing bridges again

Beautiful scenery and many people using the towpaths which is great

 

 

The turf-sided lock at Monkey Marsh

 

 

 

 

 

Due to the lack of rainfall in England this year, we'd heard that parts of the canal are precariously low and soon experienced a problem where the weir was taking water out unnecessarily.  A passing boat warned us to be careful as the water level between Old Heale's and Midgham locks was dangerously low.   Arriving at the first lock a boat was waiting to come down (having emptied the pound despite us being in sight coming up which we thought rather silly in the circumstances!), and said another narrowboat was stuck on the bottom a little further up so they were waiting for them. 

 

 

 

This appeared to be the problem - an overflowing weir

 

 

 

Things progressed slowly but we eventfully got through the lock.  However, on reaching Cranwell's Swing Bridge we came upon two hotel boats, one pulling the other, who'd become 'beached' on the muddy canal bottom.  This meant we had to  float around behind Jon who'd sent his wife Chloe and other crew to walk to the next lock to let more water in. 

The hotel boats managed to extricate themselves and a short time later Jon found his stern wedged on the canal bed - he tried to winch himself out with his big stick (barge pole to those in the know!) but overbalanced, slipped on the matting at the stern and went in with a 'SPLASH' - shame!  We've managed to avoid such a calamity to date - but there's always time!  Jon's friend's camera had unfortunately run out of batteries, luckily Barry was there at the ready - didn't quite get the actual falling in though ...

Attempting to 'hover' while the hotel boats free themselves

 

 

One of Jon's crew gets a photo of the hotel boats passing - Jon successfully de-wedges himself this time ...

 

 

 

Luckily the crowded hotel boats have passed by when Jon went for a ducking!

Not the cleanest water to be drenched in - but Jon was a great sport about his mishap!

Getting some girl muscle for the swing bridge

A panoramic shot of Bull's Lock - one in, one to go

 

 

This is was a 'True Story' - looks more like a disaster

 

 

 

 

It was another sunny day which helped to keep spirits up despite the challenges - besides it's all part of the fun of being on the canals. 

I had a long walk to Ham Lock, not far from Newbury, while Guelrose and crew got a bit left behind closing the swing bridge and removing an abundance of matter from their prop.  As I arrived at the lock Barry was helping a hire boat coming down, so I stayed inside the boat writing the blog.  Some time later I wondered why they hadn't opened the gates yet and found them still descending.  I thought it must've been terribly slow to empty - Barry later relayed what had happened:

The man in charge (I use that term a little loosely bless him!) had tied up the stern rope to a bollard while Barry and one of the boys had opened the paddles.  As water was gushing out of the lock the boat was descending accordingly - well apart from the back end that is!  Fortunately Barry suddenly realised what was happening as he saw the boat leaning sidewards with its back end raised, frantically closed his paddle and shouted to the boy across the lock gate to do the same, then ran rapidly to the other end to let some water back in!  Luckily he was in time to rescue the boat from catastrophe - I wondered why the man was sweating so badly when I passed him as I entered the lock and he told me Barry had saved the day!  What a hero husband I have :-)

This looks like a disaster about to happen - and it was!

Private Marina just past Greenham Lock as we came into Newbury

Geulrose caught us up and we continued onto Newbury where they carried on and we moored up to have a look around.  As we were mooching around the town the rain started - and it set in for the next 24 hours!  We had a quiet night in and I suddenly realised that we weren't far away from my sister Linda, who'd never been to the boat, so gave her a call and as luck would have it, she had a day off work on Tuesday so we arranged for her to come to see us.

The canal meanders through the town centre of Newbury with pubs and restaurants overlooking the water

            A pleasant spot to dine                         The 'Lock, Stock and Barrel', Newbury Lock       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Nicholas Church - built in the 15th century at the height of Newbury's prosperity as a wool town

West Mills - lots of moorings adjacent to these pretty pink stone cottages - they look as though they've subsided!

West Mills Swing Bridge, not far from the lock at Newbury

The rear view of the church, and on the right the Town Hall?

Newbury Wharf area, where we moved along on Monday night and moored by the park

On Tuesday morning I received a text from Sarah in Oxford to say she'd just purchased a copy of September's 'Canal Boat' magazine from WH Smiths.  We've been eagerly anticipating its publication so I ventured back into town and bought a couple of copies - one to send to New Zealand.  Nick Hall has done a wonderful job - he took the copy I'd originally submitted for the 'Me and my Boat' feature, then came and interviewed us when he decided that he wanted to make more of our story, collected a CD of Barry's photo's that we'd sent, and put it all together to make a vivid account of our journeys which brought tears to my eyes - excellent article Nick, thank you, it really captured our essence/joie de vivre.

Around lunchtime, my sister Linda travelled up from Southampton with her two dogs, despite the persistent rain bless her.  Such a shame that the weather was awful the whole day, but we did get a walk and had a spot of lunch at the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust (Newbury Branch) tea rooms, which are in a stone building previously a stone granary, and run by some very efficient and friendly people.

Linda and I had a bit of a girlie time and strolled into town, leaving Barry to babysit the dogs on the boat - he had a day off taking photos, must've been the driving rain - the only two were taken by Sandra!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure who looks more apprehensive about this dog sitting thing?

Teidi and Alfie get their just rewards for putting up with Barry for an hour

 

Later in the evening the rain abated so I walked to Tesco's for some groceries and discovered 2kg bags of sugar on special (needed for the home brew!).  So I phoned Barry to suggest that if he wanted 6kg of said sugar he'd best come and carry it, which he duly did.  Returning to the boat I heard two smashes, looked round to find two jars of curry on the ground, then the sound of boys laughing as they watched the events from the bridge (cheeky buggers!), and realised they'd fallen from the backpack that Barry hadn't closed!  What a shame, the jars had also been on offer, two for 3 pounds, so in the end I didn't save anything on the sugar after all.  To top it all I was so worked up after having to use the 'self-service' checkouts with a trolley-full of goods (why do they do that?  I worked as a checkout operator when I was 17, I don't wish to do it at 50 thank you very much!) that I'd foolishly abandoned my trolley at the checkouts and only realised when we'd got back to the boat that I hadn't collected my pound! 

We had to see the funny side though - but sorry, no photos of the events as Barry hadn't taken his camera out all day - must've decided he needed a day off!

 Mmmm ..., no idea what these are!