River Severn & Droitwich Canal

Leaving the mooring basin at Stourport on Severn was not as easy as we imagined. The wind was blowing fairly strongly in the morning and even though we delayed a couple of hours in the hope it would drop away, it was still quite blowy when we made the decision to leave. The boat is very long and every time we poked our bow around the corner, the wind caught it and blew us sideways so that we were pointing in completely the wrong direction. This happened several times before we successfully made our way to the four locks that we needed to go through to get to the river. Fortunately for us, there were volunteer lock keepers on duty, so we were able to leave the operation of the locks to them, and concentrate on being in the right place to move smoothly into the next lock.
Once we were on the river, navigation became much easier, and even though there was a current we were traveling downstream.
In two places, the river drops down a small rapids, and all boats were diverted to a side channel with a large lock to take us safely to the lower level. 
These river locks were operated by lock keepers, using a traffic light system and hydraulic gates, which made very easy what would have been a long and arduous process if we had to do it by hand because the locks were huge to accommodate much bigger boats.
Once we were down river about seven miles, and then safely in the Droitwich canal, we navigated several barge locks before we found a small clearing in the thick reeds lining both sides of the canal, where we were able to tie up for the night. 
The locks on the lower parts of this canal are barge locks and twice as wide at the narrowboat ones we have used so far. This means the paddles are larger and therefore much harder to wind up, and the gates are enormous and also much heavier to open. We found we could get through by opening only one gate, and slipping through, rather than heaving both gates open. It was still hard work and my shoulder and arm were not very happy by the time we stopped for the night.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great video of us crossing the Chirk Aqueduct

Peter Salisbury took this video of us crossing the iconic Chirk Aqueduct. On our return trip from Llangollen we crossed this as well as the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct which is the longest canal aqueduct in Great Britain, and the highest canal aqueduct in the world. Standing 39 metres above the River Dee, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct is 307 metres long and is constructed of an iron trough supported by 18 hollow masonry piers. It was designed by civil engineer Thomas Telford and built over about a 10 year period and was completed in 1805. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and recognised as an engineering masterpiece of the industrial revolution and it was very special to travel both ways over both aqueducts.     
Read more

Tour of our narrowboat 'Southern Cross'

Image
I thought you might like a tour of our narrowboat ‘Southern Cross’, our home for the next three months. Apart from being very long, at 65 feet, she is just 6ft 10in wide, which is the maximum width to fit through the locks. Starting from the stern, there is a small platform with the tiller which steers the boat.     From there, small double doors lead down directly into the galley. The galley has a full size gas stove with grill and oven, small fridge, sink and cupboards. Next to the galley is the dining/sitting area that comprises two bench seats and a table that can be removed.   There is another larger table but we have found the small one is easier to live with. We leave it at the end during the day, and move it into the centre of the seats at dinner time. From the galley there is a passageway past a bathroom with shower, basin and toilet, next is our bedroom, followed by a ‘spare’ room that can be either a sitting area or bedroom, which we have set up as seating, the...
Read more

On our way....

Image
We woke to beautiful sunshine this morning,  and after breakfast set off puttering up the Shropshire Union canal on our way to Nantwich . Peter took the helm once we were out of the marina, and did a great job of steering us through six miles of canal and three locks between Overwater Marina and Nantwich. It's quite different steering to our boat at home, mainly because the front of the boat is so far from the helm at the stern. It's so pretty along the canals, green fields on either side, and all the bushes have berries of blue, red or orange. Not much autumn foliage yet, but I'm sure that will come in time. The old stone bridges are picturesque and are all numbered, which helps with navigation. Peter and Val have used locks on the canals before, but it was a new experience for us. We'll have plenty of time to learn all the different types of locks over the next three months.   We moored alongside the towpath just outside Nantwich and walked into town for lunch and ...
Read more