The biggest set of ‘staircase’ locks I’ve encountered.
29 Locks in 2 miles.
I believe, we got to lock 23, with anther 6 to go…
I dipped the tank at the top, the day before I set out and there seemed to be a good 2 inches in the tank, which I thought would easily power me down to Trowbridge.
Turned out not to be the case. …
Penultimate day on the boat…. I suspect.
Honey Street is only down the road from Devizes, saw this on the way. Milk Hill I believe they call it.
Weather is only just holding off rain, and cold.
Pass this contraption.
Filled with hi-vis CRT workers.
On the end it has a fork lift contraption and a massive rotating disk. It looks like something out of ‘Robot Wars’.
I pass by the visitors moorings in Honey Street, which are outside the ‘Barge Inn’.
Impossible to find either on the OS map, or the internet. Probably about 300 yards from where I moored in someone’s back garden.
I intend to stay in Devizes for the next couple of days. …
Woke up in the morning to find the boat on it’s side.
During the night, the pound, (the expanse of water between locks), had emptied out. I can see from my bed that one side of the boat is much lower than the other.
This makes me kind of uneasy, as I don’t know how much water has gone from under the boat.
As I look out of the window, it doesn’t look to be a lot. Still, if I leave it, it will get worse, especially if people come and start using the locks.
Quickly put some clothes on, do an engine check and start the engine.
I can push the stern out from the bank, but not the bow, which seems lodged.
I shove it in reverse, kicking up the mud and gravel and shit, and waggle the tiller a little, which has the right effect.
As I drift backwards, the front end follows, and I drift backward to the safety of the bollards of Potters Lock.
It looks like the pound had emptied by around a foot or so whilst I was asleep.
Moored at the locks, which you’re not supposed to do. Had a bit to eat and got going before anything else could go wrong.
Later on down the pound, a wide beam has run aground on the shallow water.
Earlier on the following day, some large canoeists had been leaving all the bottom paddles up and gates open, now all the pounds are empty.
There’re more sets of locks on this Kennet than any other canal.
They’re all double.
Apart from that, they only have one sluice or ‘paddle’, this means that unlike the other double locks on the CRT system, they fill very slowly.
Most double locks have a ‘ground paddle’, which opens and lets water in from the bottom of the lock, and a ‘gate paddle’ that lets water in at the top of the gate, water level.
This has the net effect of creating an even filling of the lock.
These locks are much slower. Painfully slow.
So, I hang around.
18 Locks and 11 miles later I feel exhausted.
I’ve got to go to bed.
Going to leave you with these photos.
Getting really bored of writing this blog now.
Can’t wait till it’s over and I can have a rest.
Today leaving Theale after my flooding incident at Garston locks.
The boat is more or less dried out.
Here’s a picture of a locks similar to Garston.
As you can see, the spouts of water project from under the gate, and in my case straight into the bow area.
On my case, it came up to the windows on the door, and started flowing in the frame.
Pulling the boat to the front of the locks is not a good idea with locks of this design.
Had it got worse, it would have come in through the wall vents.
Still, it’s fixed now.
I need to pick up a relay switch, because the horn no longer works. …
Starting to feel a bit tired now.
8 days without a break.
Came through Goring and Reading OK. No trouble with the river police over my invalid licence.
Stopped off at Tesco Extra in Reading, which was backing onto the river. …
Started at the ISIS lock, the entry to the river Thames. This kind of winds it’s way out of Oxford, then broadens out a bit after the Osney lock.
The lock keeper at the Osney lock issues me a licence with the wrong date on it.
I paid for 2 days, as you can see, but she’s yesterdays date on it, the 13th.
Also, I paid by cash. She’s put that I paid by card.
This is going to have the net effect of having me pulled up and making a claim that I haven’t paid, when really I have.
The blog is a testament to my movements. Also the photos I took on the 13th pretty clearly show that I wasn’t on the Thames.
Some fun for tomorrow.
Is much faster. The locks are all hydrolic. …