Day 9 - Outskirts of Newbury, home to the first belisha beacons I believe.

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10 locks, 63 in total.

It's been good to be moving again. Dunlin purred along, ably assisted by wind and, in some places, the current. The R. Kennet criss-crosses the canal, pushing and pulling the boat at the most inopportune times – by lock moorings, especially. (Note to novices – canals are shallow so narrowboats are flat-bottomed. Without a keel they go sideways very easily.)







For many miles we ran alongside water meadows and were often accompanied by huge flocks of sand martins, swooping around us as nimbly as bats as they caught insects close to the water. We saw a kingfisher too – our first of the holiday. The horse-drawn barge was moored at Kintbury but was not carrying passengers today.







Just west of Newbury the Kennet joined the canal again. This coincided with the skies opening for several hours and the following wind picking up to near gale force at times. We overshot our moorings spectacularly as it was impossible for one person alone to hold the boat onshore and temporarily hitched to a couple of convenient signposts before both walked Dunlin back to where she should have been.







It's wet, very very cold and the boat is rocking madly and dragging the mooring stakes.



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The sun came out briefly later on so we strolled into town to dry our waterproofs and buy some chips – and got caught in the next downpour!







Boat name of the day – The Leaky Cauldron

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Photos

One of many little weirs.....
... taking overflow water from the canal to the Kennet.

Bridge carrying the A34 Newbury Bypass
Remember all the demonstrations against it? By the way, this bridge won a Concrete Society Award - a little bit of info to cherish.

All about Newbury
... to save me writing it out.

Comments

[sgs]

cold
yes, really cold, but did you get snow like us?! Keep up the good blog work and glad you have been on your way again. sgs