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Published: October 31st 2016
Friday – 16/9/2016 Picking up from my last blog, in Bristol we picked up our dispersed travellers and returned to Bath, where we’d moored before on the river. The last time we were there we were wondering if we could continue with our trip. Thankfully, Paul’s back was considerably better. He was still in some pain but there was improvement.
While chugging up the river, Susan tried her hand at the locks and did very well. Dale was a pro and a great help. One of the deeper locks was interesting to watch. Jill ducked inside, so that she didn’t get wet, but was like a coiled spring, jumping up and peeking at everything, wanting to see what was going on. The lock took ages to fill; such a great force of water.
Another interesting sight was when we passed a father and son erecting a Seahopper folder. It’s such a dinky boat, folding up so small, but I wouldn’t take it anywhere except on flat, calm waters. Not sure why it is called a Seahopper, I can’t imagine taking it to sea, unless the water is glassy!
We couldn’t get over the various boats on the
canals. All shapes and sizes, some selling wares, offering services such as hairdressers, beauticians, sweetshops and artists. Others had very strange and peculiar set-ups.
The following day we moved up from the river to the canal once more and moored closer to town. In the afternoon Clive and Dale went to watch the rugby while the rest of us did the Red bus tour. We bought tickets for the City tour and we found it fascinating, learning more about Bath. We gathered that we had walked most of the city of Bath in the few days we’d spent there.
We were told that we could do the Skyline tour as well with the same ticket. This was on the outskirts of Bath. We were thrilled and had a commentator this time, not just a recorded tour guide. Trying to get out of Bath, however, was a disaster and took forever, with traffic jams everywhere. Apparently it was caused by the University’s open day as well as the rugby. Once out of the main section of town, driving up a hill, we were stuck behind about four other Red busses. They couldn’t go any further and couldn’t turn around.
We loaded a few more of their passengers and took a road where we could turn into. The detour turned out to be just as interesting and we saw a lovely view of Bath as well as its outskirts.
Another day was spent in Bath while we went to the old Roman Baths. Steeped in ancient history, it was fascinating to learn about the bathing habits of the Romans in the hot springs. Thereafter we bid farewell to Jill and Sue at the station. They were heading home and we were sad to see them go; such a short time but so good to see them again. Afterwards we carried on up the last few locks and moored for a short while near a Tesco express to stock up on supplies. We moved on a bit further up the canal and that evening had another barbeque of delicious pork rashers and chops on the Cobb, cooked by Clive. Dale made a lemon meringue pie especially for Clive, in the tiny galley. We were all impressed with her effort, especially whisking the egg white with a fork.
On Monday, we carried on to Avoncliff where one of the aqueducts
was. Karen was coughing and wheezing and struggling to breathe. She, Clive and Dale caught a taxi back to Bath so that Karen could see a doctor. It was also time to say farewell to Dale. It seems we were destined to stay near Bath on this trip.
Paul and I had lunch at a quaint pub next to the aqueduct. It was beautifully decorated with very interesting things inside. After lunch we walked up the hill to Wisley and back down a very steep slope to the canal. Lovely to walk around the countryside.
Upon returning to the boat, we walked to the other side of the Aqueduct to see if it was worth mooring on the other side for the night. It had a sill so we couldn’t moor too close to the edge and had to use the gangplank to get on and off the boat. We met with Karen and Clive who had just returned. Karen had a chest infection and was given antibiotic and asthma inhalers. We had a delicious dinner at the pub. Karen and Clive shared a mixed grill. Paul had lasagne and chips – what a strange combination! I had
Chicken korma with poppadom. Paul and Clive had the best Banoffee tart for dessert! My chocolate fudge cake was equally decadent.
We decided to stay at our mooring spot. We lilted quite a bit during the night and Karen and I both felt as if we were going to fall off the beds, because we were both sleeping on the open sides of the bunks. Half of my mattress was hanging off the edge too.
The following day we went back to Bradford on Avon. There were two volunteers helping with the locks. They told us where to moor to get to Sainsbury’s where we stocked up once again. Two weeks is a long time with limited space on the boat to store things, especially fridge and freezer facilities. We then went through a few locks and met a family who had three boats. I chatted to the girl who was very sweet. She must have been about 8 or 9. She explained that ‘one of the boats didn’t have an engine and would never have one’ and that it was called a butty. They proceeded through the locks with quite a bit of manhandling, bashing and bumping
and dragging the butty along.
Further along the canal, Karen and I pushed and shoved four swing bridges. Each bridge that was wide enough for a vehicle weighed 3 tons and we pushed 3 of those. One bridge was a pedestrian bridge. Karen and I were joking about how many tons we had moved and were disappointed the pedestrian bridge didn’t have a weight on. We were certainly exercising our muscles.
We stopped at Seend Cleeve for the night and had dinner in a pub. Not as quaint as the previous pub, but quite pleasant enough and the food was lovely.
The next day was another day of numerous locks and swing bridges. We helped a guy who was on his own on a boat, go through the locks and he was very grateful. He offered to help but then he would have been stuck, hopping on and off his boat and there were enough of us. I enjoy the banter with everyone we meet on the way, chatting to them and patting dogs as their owners stroll down the towpaths. Most of the people are so friendly and many walking or cycling, watch us as we
go down the canal or through the locks.
We went as far as the bottom of the Devizes locks and turned around there. We moored close to where we turned and went to have a drink at a nearby pub then had another meal cooked by Clive on the Cobb and watched a great sunset.
On the Thursday, we walked up the Devizes locks, all 29 of them. Glad we didn’t do them, because it would have taken the whole morning and we would have turned around just to do it all in reverse again. Instead, we had a break halfway and stopped for tea and scones then went to the market in Devizes. It was an interesting experience, with lots of shouting from guys trying to sell their produce and wares at the market. There was such a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, olives and other goodies to buy, even biltong but at an astronomical price.
We moored opposite The Barge Inn at Seend Cleeve and had dinner at the Brewery pub.
During the night the canal dropped considerably and once again we were lilting. It felt very much like the
other night when we were also balancing on the cill. We were very concerned that we would run aground and had been warned by other boaters that it could happen. Some time during the night we heard footsteps crunching on the gravel path as people were walking back to their boats. A little later we heard some more footsteps and saw someone shining a torch near the windows. The boat lurched slightly and we heard someone digging in one of the outside lockers at the back. Paul, the true South African, always tuned in with one ear listening for burglars, leapt out of bed and screamed ‘someone’s stealing our stuff!’ He yanked the door open, which took some time, and wanted to give chase but by that stage all we could see was a torch light bobbing down the path. Paul discovered the windlass was gone and was irate, but I told him to calm down. He was adamant he wanted to pursue this perpetrator and give him a typical South African send off. Firstly, with a bad back, and barefoot on a coarse stony path it wouldn’t be a good idea. Secondly, unarmed, hot tailing a thief with a
windlass as a weapon, was not a good idea. After calming down somewhat, we realised it was Clive walking down the path with the windlass. He was checking the locks because the water was so low and wanted to raise the level of the water. We all had a good chuckle afterwards.
It was the last full day of our canal trip and we woke up to the canal still being very low. A TV crew were coming up in the lock so we used the opportunity to go down two locks to get to deeper water. We passed the crew and there was much shouting, teasing and cameras and microphones being waved around. They asked Karen if she would object to being filmed, so who knows, she might even become a TV star. Later Karen cooked us a lovely breakfast of ducks eggs for breakfast with bacon and tomato. Really nice and not so different to chicken eggs except for the size with a much larger yolk and a slight difference in texture.
It was our last night and we moored near the boatyard and had dinner at the Boatyard inn again – where we
started our canal trip. We had to return the boat by 9am so needed to be close by.
After unpacking the boat, we drove to a small picturesque village called Nunny. We went to look at the ruins of a medieval moated castle – Nunny Castle, dated from 1370, and built by Sir John de la Mare. We had coffee and snacks at the Castle Kitchen along with an invasion of cyclists, stopping for their breakfast before continuing with their ride.
We then drove to Frome where we walked around and had lunch. It is a very hilly town with some steep cobbled streets. There we said our goodbyes to Karen and Clive and caught the train to Westbury, the next station after Frome, where we caught a second train to Paddington. The train was packed and we lugged our bags into one of the last carriages. There was only room to sit in one of the front carriages but it was too much hassle to drag our bags through the narrow aisles through several carriages, so we stood. After our first and only stop, which was Reading, we managed to get two seats in the
carriage we were in. At Paddington we caught the Heathrow express back to the airport – the most expensive 15 minutes on the train.
We walked around Heathrow, killing time till it was our flight with Virgin Atlantic. Highly recommended, with good service and a modern plane.
Would I do a canal boat trip again? Need you ask?
If you want to see all the photos, please be sure to look at the next pages.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Wow!!! What an adventure...
Linda and I, along with my Mom and sister, rented a barge in Holland in 1984. Both the barge and canals were much wider so we were able to avoid some of your more stressing situations. But it's still a nice way to see a country!