TO HUNGERFORD AND BEYOND

Wednesday, 23rd June
The weather was awful so we stayed on the same mooring.
The rain lashed down, the wind blew and blew and we were as warm as toast!
It was good to have a reason to stay put, we seem to have done a lot of travelling the last few weeks.

Thursday, 24th June
A better day. The sun is out and the wind has calmed down a little.
This is a 'tough' canal!
We knew before we started that it was going to be hard work,
but we were possibly not fully prepared for what lay ahead.
106 locks in about 95 miles, must average out at least one a mile!
And, so far, the locks are in a bad state.
The gates are old, creaky, ill fitting and awkward.
There was one which Trev just couldn't open,
but fortunately another boat came along and its crew helped.
The gates also leak an awful lot, and so you have to open the paddles fairly wide
in order to fill the lock before it all runs out at the other end!
Add to that the fact that so far most of them have had gate paddles,
where the water belts through the actual gate
and smacks our boat full in the front at a tremendous rate of knots,
and you begin to get the picture!!

Then there are the swing bridges--lots of them too.
Some are just farm tracks over the canal,
and there is no traffic to hold up,
but others are on busy roads and we have to hold everyone up
I always smile and say thank you to the drivers who have been inconvenienced,
but am usually met by stony stares!
They're all in such a hurry, you see, dashing along at sixty m.p.h.
to their next appointment, whereas we...............
Maybe that's why they don't smile back!

Now, I don't want you to think that I'm complaining
about all of these locks and swing bridges and things.
Far from it--we masn't gwamble!
But there are rather a lot......



A TURF SIDED LOCK

Eventually we arrived at Woolhampton and moored up just below the pub--The Row Barge.
We had just tied up when a man came along and said we shouldn't be moored there,
as it was private property.
However, he would "turn a blind eye to it" as long as we were gone in the morning.
This was all new to us, as we're used to being able to moor anywhere on the towpath side,
but, of course, we're not on a canal all the time along here.
Some of it is river, and I suppose the banks are owned by local landowners.
Though I really can't see what damage two mooring pins are going to do,
especially as it was a public footpath any way. Heigh ho!

We had decided it must be about time to have a meal out, and, another bonus,
The Mikron Theatre company was playing at the pub too.
The Mikron Theatre Company is a group of actors who live on and travel along in a narrowboat,
playing to audiences along the canal.
So we ate at the pub and I went to the performance whilst Trev watched a football match
--England v Portugal--on a wide screen television in the pub garden.
The play traced the history of the railways,
but I must confess I found it rather boring and didn't go back for the second half.
May be England would have liked the same possibility of not returning for the second half as well!
The meal wasn't brilliant either.
Still, we masn't...........!

Saturday, 25th June
Yesterday was a long day, with a lot of locks and swing bridges.
We went by Thatcham and on to Newbury, where we moored in a delightful spot
on the outskirts of the town.
Today we walked in to Newbury, and it is a very pleasant town.
we were surprised, as we had memories of driving through it
before the by-pass was built and remembered it as a busy bottleneck.
Now the main street is pedestrianised in the daytime and it made shopping a good experience.



NEWBURY

I used the internet facility at the library.
Thank you to everyone who writes to me on my Yahoo email address.
I open it whenever I get access to the internet at a library
and there are always emails from people whom I've never met,
but who have found our website some how!

We left Newbury around 3.00 p.m. and set off for Kintbury,
where we were due to meet friends from Kenilworth tomorrow.
It started to rain almost immediately and continued on and off for the rest of the afternoon.
Trev cycled ahead and set the locks.
The countryside is beautiful, very green, very peaceful, very pretty.
There was a horse drawn wide beam trip boat in front of us,
and they left the top lock gates open on every lock,
meaning that Trev first had to shut both gates before he could empty the lock to let us through.
This involved him walking all round the lock to get to both gates.
He asked them if they could shut the gates as they left,
but they said they couldn't as they didn't have enough crew!

Eventually we arrived at Kintbury, and there weren't any moorings.
They were all taken by people who had arrived earlier.
This was fairly inconvenient, as we had friends arriving tomorrow.
Eventually, the boat at the end offered to move up a bit
and we squeezed in behind, though our stern was overhanging the water point, which is a bit naughty.
However, it was quite late, and, fortunately, no other boats came along.



I walked in to the village to find a suitable pub for lunch tomorrow,
but of the three, two didn't serve food on Sundays, and in the other one,
one needed an oxygen mask on to cope with the cigarette smoke!
So, what to do?
As I walked back to the boat, I met a man on the bridge and asked if he had any recommendations.
He did, and recommended a pub on Hungerford Downs.
I rang and booked.

Sunday, 27th June
Mary and Dave duly arrived and we went in their car to the pub.
It was an excellent recommendation, the food was good, and it was an opportunity
to see the countryside from a perspective other than the canal.
It is really glorious round here, the views across the Downs were far reaching.
We came back to the boat and parked Mary & Dave's car in the station car park,
for I had hatched a cunning plan to give them a cruise
without having to return in the boat with them to their car!
The railway follows the canal very closely all along here,
and so we took our visitors to the next station at Hungerford by boat,
and they caught the train back to their car.
It worked well and also meant that we had extra crew on board to help with the locks!
A cunning plan indeed!
We moored up at Hungerford for the night.

Monday, 28th June
Today we had another visitor coming, John, who is a Unitarian, like me,
whom I met when we were at the Unitarian Holiday Centre in May.
He is going to buy a narrowboat and wanted to see ours.
Before we know where we are, we shall have to start a Unitarian Cruising Club!
Again, I was ready to put my cunning plan in to action again,
thinking that John could leave his car at Hungerford Station
and come with us to the next station along the way, at Great Bedwyn.
But John was a step ahead, and had brought his bike!
So he stowed that on board, and off we went.

What we hadn't realised is that John is an ace steerer!
He's had experience of steering narrowboats, and so we could safely leave him in charge.
He was excellent, taking us safely in to locks and doing all of the tricky manoeuvres.
We did he locks in company with another boat--"Nice Item",
named after a friend who collects brass, and, whenver he finds sometihng he likes, says it is a nice item!

The weather was warm but windy, and at least we didn't get rain.
Now we're in Wiltshire, and the scenery is equally as lovely as before.
We're moored at Great Bedwyn, and are hoping to pick our mail up here,
from the Post Office. Our friends have sent it Poste Restante.
Trev went to Post Office when we arrived, but there is nothing there yet.
Fingers crossed!

It's a beautiful evening, so clear and fine.

Tuesday, 29th June We stayed at Great Bedwyn for another night, as we're waiting
for another letter to arrive.
We went to Newbury by train.
There's a really good train service along this valley,
calling at the villages on the way.
We needed to go to the Building Society in Newbury.
We went when we were moored in Newbury on Saturday,
but it was closed.
So we had a pleasant train journey, all along the canal,
and in half an hour, we covered the distance it had taken two days top do on the canal!

I haven't kept you up to date with how far we've travelled.
Since we left Braunston on March 31st, we've done:

369 miles
285 locks

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