On the way to Bristol - part 2

Bradford-on-Avon

Continuing our travels westwards on the Kennet and Avon canal (K&A) we went through pretty Bradford-on-Avon:

Looking down from the bridge crossing the River Avon we saw this swan on her nest and got talking to a local lady who was also watching it.  She told us that the swan’s previous nest had been washed away by the swollen river two weeks earlier.  The silly thing (the swan) had built the new nest in the same spot!  She (the local lady) also explained that she spent as much time on the bridge as possible as she had previously chased some young yobs who were throwing stones at the nest.  By the time we came back through Bradford-on-Avon the nest was empty so we never found out whether the swan was successful.

Aqueducts

There are two major aqueducts on the K&A and they are both in this area.  They were both built to cross the River Avon from one side of the valley to the other.
First we came to Avoncliffe aqueduct.  We found the turns a bit tight when we hired a boat here years ago and grounded the boat in front of a crowd of tourists but were OK this time round.  There is a nice old micro brewery pub just off the aqueduct.  The banks along here are full of wild garlic; the smell is wonderful at the right time of year.  It is the leaves from this plant that are used in cooking so we made sure we took what we needed for the next few days.

Dundas aqueduct was next.  This is a honey pot for tourists; the old Somersetshire Coal canal joins at the aqueduct and has a rowing boat hire centre and cafes. 

Strange art/sculptures

Well, they were strange to us. I’m sure artists find them normal.  There were several of these pieces between Bradford-on-Avon and Bath.  Here are three that we managed to photograph.

Pumping stations

After Dundas aqueduct we went past Claverton pumping station.  Pumping stations were built at the same time as the canals and were/are used to pump water up to the higher levels. The highest level on a canal is known as the summit level.  The summit level on the K&A is 15 miles long, i.e. 15 miles without a lock.  The stretches between locks are called pounds.

Many pumping stations are open to the public and are fascinating to visit.  We had spent some time at Crofton pumping station (just west of Hungerford).  They say it is the oldest steam beam engine in the world that still works and is still in its original building.  I suppose they mean not restored and rebuilt in a museum.  It was here that we had the clever idea of pressure washing the boat.  Unfortunately the water pressure at the water point was not high enough to get the pressure pump working.  Still, it provided a good spectacle for the visitors to the pumping station who had wandered down to the canal for picnics or to gongoozle.  Here is a link to an informative video about the Crofton beam engines.

As regular canal travellers we get email alerts of breakdowns, blockages and stoppages etc. to help us plan our journeys.  Coincidentally I received this one yesterday; it would have been a bit frustrating if we were travelling through that area at the moment.

1 note

Polelathe on the way to Bristol

Devizes (where all the pubs sell 6X)

We spent a few nights in Devizes and found some quaint places.  My eldest sons Chris and Steve came down for a weekend to help with odd jobs on the boat and enjoy a bit of cruising.  I seem to remember that the Saturday evening was one of those where it seems a great idea to crack open the port.

Wootton Rivers

Unusual dial on this church clock at Wootton Rivers.  

Pewsey

Our good friends, John & Heather, joined us at Pewsey for a long weekend.  We had an unfortunate start on the Saturday morning.  Whilst filling up with water at Pewsey Wharf we heard a massive bang/crash and a white van had hit the side of the canal bridge and flipped over completely blocking the road.  As some of the bridge coping stones had been displaced the police put tape across the canal to stop us travelling until structural engineers arrived and passed it safe.  It was OK as there was a pub on the wharf right next to where we were moored and we weren’t driving anywhere.  When the engineers arrived they just pushed the loose stones into the canal and we were on our way. Would have made the repairers’ job more difficult as they would have had to retrieve the stones first.

We eventually got through and had a pleasant weekend cruising, albeit in a lot of rain, down to a place called Horton.  I believe we had another ‘good idea for port’ nights on the Saturday.  As we had two cars between us we had already stationed one car at the the Bridge inn in Horton to make it easy to go back for the other car once we finished cruising.  When we arrived we couldn’t find the key to the car at the Bridge inn so John and I had to cycle back to his car at Pewsey in the hope we had dropped the keys in his car on on the canal side.  Karen and Heather took refuge in the pub of course. It was rather a long cycle as we had cruised a long way assuming we would be using the cars,  All was OK in the end as I had dropped the keys in John’s car.

Traders

We have seen all sorts of boat traders but this guy has been the most interesting.  We bumped into him around Pewsey and he had made a polelathe and carried it on his boat (dismantled) and assembled it on the towpath to turn bowls and plates etc.

Limpley Stoke

My youngest daughter, Polly, joined us for a weekend with two of her friends.  We had a great weekend and found a good ice cream boat and saw our first book swap telephone box.

Living on a marina

For the first year after we bought the boat we were moored in a marina at Newbury in Berkshire.  It was handy as it enabled us to refit the inside.  For example getting to the local tip was easy as we could park the car right next to the boat to load up with old sanitary ware etc.  The only downside, initially, was the distance from home, a 200 mile round trip on the M25 and M4 most Friday nights/Sunday afternoons.

Coincidentally Sophie moved in with Justin that year and they lived in Newbury.  This was good as it meant we could see more of Sophie and that they could borrow the boat sometimes.

The marina was on an island with friendly owners and residents and it was very close to the town centre and what became our local, the LSB (Lock, Stock and Barrel).  This was a popular boaters’ pub and also right on Newbury lock.  It was also a very dog friendly pub; ideal as most boaters seemed to have dogs.

We spent Christmas 2010 and the New Year on the boat; it was the last really cold winter we really had.  The canal was often frozen over and we had ice on the inside of the windows in the morning.  Here is a particularly nice heart formation:

And here are some Christmas Day/New Year’s Day photos:

It was in that winter that we met our first live-aboard friends, Richard and Sarah.  Here’s their boat, Foxy Lady, iced in opposite our marina.  They had had their first baby a few weeks before Christmas.

In the spring we had a female mallard living on the marina with 29 adopted ducklings of various ages - more children than us!

Various of our children would visit at the weekends and we would go cruising or just stay on the boat and visit Newbury.  Here are Jake and Jo having fun in our kayak in the area of Newbury called West Mills.  Probably the worst two children to put together if you wanted them back with dry clothes.

We had a weird experience when Jo and Polly stopped over one weekend.  We had cruised to the west of Newbury and were moored up for lunch.  The girls were on the front deck and a man started talking to them.  I went to check what was going on and he was offering for them to come to his house to take a bath as he thought that it would be a nice change from living on a boat.

We had a steep learning curve in that first year and not just about how to cruise and use locks in safety.  For example, we were cruising with Lauren and Emily and somehow my glasses became dislodged and fell into the canal.  This was in the days before we owned a good strong magnet so nowadays I have my glasses tied round my neck just in case.  The children thought this idea was more fun though:

We avidly read canal boat magazines that year and one publication often annotated pictures with speech bubbles quoting, “Good idea…” etc.  Sophie was constantly taking the mickey out of pictures of me, especially when my DIY ineptitude could be seen.

Here are a few snaps from some of the cruises we went on in that first year:

And here are some of our visitors:

After a year we were spending more time cruising than in the marina and realised how ridiculously expensive it was so we became continuous cruisers; a term recognised by the licensing authority as someone who does not stay in the same vicinity for more than 14 days.  This is a moot point in cities such as London where people move up and down the same stretch because they work locally or their children go to school locally.  In our mind (and a lot of other people’s minds) they are not really continuous cruisers and should have the facility for a permanent type mooring licence.  Still, that’s a long story, subject to ongoing legislative debate, but one where we can see both sides of the argument.

Ding Marin

We bought Chalkhill Blue as a hire boat from Reading Marine during 2010.  Three weeks before we picked her up the engine packed up and as the boat was still out on hire the engine was replaced by the hire company.  In effect we got a brand new engine! Her name at the time was Kennet Lock.

We went with most of the children to pick her up from Aldermaston Wharf but when we arrived there appeared to be no one there. As it was the end of the hire season there were about 20 boats all moored up together and they all looked similar as they were all in the same livery.  Karen started clambering over them all to find it.  When she found it she shouted, "Here it is, but it's now called 'Ding Marin'!".  She had looked over the top of another boat and seen the top half of the crescent of words 'READING MARINE CO.':

From then on she was nicknamed Ding Marin and we painted out the superfluous letters:

I remember cruising along Christchurch meadows on the Thames in Oxford during a rowing regatta in 2011.  All cruising boats had to keep to one side of the river.  As we went past the starting line one of the umpires was using a loud hailer to remind boats to keep to the side.  He was calling out the name of each boat, I suppose to get attention.  Anyway, we heard, "Ding Marin, please keep to the right hand bank for the course of the regatta".  Made us chuckle.

This is the first picture we took after picking her up.  Sophie is driving and is waiting for Karen to set the first lock - Aldermaston lock.  She has just been through the lift bridge and the marina we picked the boat up from can be seen in the far distance.

Aldermaston lock has strange scalloped sides; we have never seen this anywhere else and don't know why it was designed like this.

We felt very proud that first day and so important when we had to stop the traffic for the lift bridge.

We knew the outside of the boat was in a dreadful state and needed completely repainting but we didn't do this until the spring of 2012.  People either pay a fortune and take the boat to a boat yard to have it professionally painted or they do it themselves on the side of the canal.  We opted for the second option (but it still felt like it cost a fortune in materials).  Most of the work was done under the A34 bridge to the west of Newbury on the Kennet and Avon canal.  Whenever we go under a major road or motorway bridge we always look for the tell tell signs of spilt paint on the side where other people have done similar work. Here you can see the roof covered in rust just before work started:

Here are some before, during and after pictures:

We put the coachlines on here at Little Bedwyn and got very muddy lying flat on the bank to make sure the lower lines were straight.  We were using a metal rule to check the distances were correct and quickly learnt why boaters always carry strong magnets. Fortunately another boater was around to lend us his magnet when we dropped the rule in the water.  One day I dropped a screwdriver in the water and shouted, "Oh no, I've lost my favourite screwdriver!". Karen thought it was funny I had a favourite screwdriver and often recounts the story.  By then we had our own magnet so it was retrieved.

 

We then added the butterflies and lettering in a lock at Hungerford.  After a family vote we had chosen the name Chalkhill Blue.  Apparently it is considered bad luck to change the name of sea going craft but it seems that this does not apply to the inland waterways so names are often changed.

Hire boat holiday 2009 (honeymoon with seven of the children)

Karen and I got married on 8^th August 2009 and spent the following week with seven of our children on the western end of the Kennet & Avon canal.  We hired an Alvechurch boat from their Hilperton marina.

Our hire boat decked out with wedding ribbons

To start the trip we headed to Bath as most of the children had never visited the city before.

One of several bike sculptures on the way down to Bath

There are a couple of fine aqueducts across the River Avon but their true majesty can really only be seen from the river level.  Sorting through the old photographs I could only find ones taken as we crossed the aqueducts.

Crossing the Avoncliff aqueduct (Sophie driving and Jake reading – both ignoring the newlyweds!)

Crossing the Avoncliff again on our way back (Polly keeping look out and Joanna reading)

Dundas aqueduct (Polly and Joanna pointing out which way to go)

We bought our first narrowboat after this trip and were based on the K&A for a couple of years before becoming ccers and venturing farther afield.  We have fond memories of Avoncliff as it is one of the best places we have found for ransoms (wild garlic leaves); the best we have found is near Preston Brook at the top end of the Trent & Mersey canal.

Pretty houses at Avoncliff (the Cross Guns pub and microbrewery sits behind the houses and is well worth a visit)

Most of the bridge and bankside stonework is quite ornate in Bath and very different from most other cities that canals pass through.

Sydney gardens footbridge in Bathwick

In the background of the picture above is Cleveland House sitting on top of Cleveland House tunnel.  Cleveland House was the headquarters of the canal company until 1864.  Tolls used to be collected through a trapdoor into the tunnel roof.

Karen musing on a stone bridge

The number of boats using the Bath end of the K&A has vastly increased since 2009  and places like this would be full of double moored boats now, just like London.

The quieter mooring times around Bathampton

Not sure what Catherine was doing here

Looking at the picture above reminds me that gangplanks are required at most mooring spots on the K&A.  Some people find this annoying and put the canal down because of it.  As we cruised mainly the K&A and Thames in our early boating years it was the norm for us and we found it strange once we started going farther afield onto waterways where gangplanks are not required.

Once we had been to Bath we turned round and headed hack east to visit Devizes.

Bottom of the main flight at Caen Hill in Devizes.

We didn’t have enough time to do the flight but walked up to the top to get ice creams.

Side pond with heron on the walk up the flight

Karen with Catherine and Joanna

Jake, Sophie, Polly & Lauren

Each lock in the flight has a side pond to help conserve water – great views across Wiltshire

Colourful boats moored above the top lock of the main flight

We travelled 40 miles through 31 locks during the holiday.