A lovely autumn day

Tuesday 20^th October; Vines Park to Hawford top lock.

We were tired after a busy few days, and didn’t wake till after 8 this morning.  The railway and busy roads are not far away, but it’s still a peaceful spot here.  By the time I had popped over to Waitrose, which was nearly empty, and put the shopping away, it was well after 10 before we slipped our mooring.  We waved to our helpful hirers from yesterday, who were moored on the pontoons -

and enjoyed a pleasant cruise through the outskirts of Droitwich, admiring the autumn colours in the sunshine.

‘Site of swingbridge’ appears twice on the map.  The first, Salwarpe swing bridge, is still there, though not in any fit state to be used.

The other has vanished, though there is still the narrowing of the navigation and the brick support for the mechanism.  The light wind sent autumn leaves spinning down, yellow and brown as they drifted across - and into - the canal.  Leaf soup is now on the menu, and we had to drop into neutral a few times to let the leaves drop off the propeller.

As we reached the top lock of the Ladywood flight, a Black Prince was ahead of us, just going out at the other end.  I went to help the crew close the heavy bottom gate.  I mentioned how hard all these locks are, but she didn’t take the hint at first.  We are definitely not in the first flush of youth, but they were quite a bit older than us and finding the heavy double locks very hard going,  so we easily caught up with them while they were still descending the second lock.  By then they had decided to wait for us at the next one.  Thank goodness!  We filled the lock again, and Dave walked back to fetch the boat.  And disappeared.  I turned round as he vanished.

He had got out by the time I took the photo!

The lock mooring is short and the bank treacherous, and what had looked like a solid edge turned out to be an overhang.  But the water was less than waist deep, and in the event he only got wet feet. The water hadn't got through his lined trousers so he didn’t need a shower before we carried on.  So we were a little late at the next lock, but not by much.  The hirers turned out to be good locking partners.  They should have picked a boat up from Chirk, but with the Wales lockdown ‘firebreak’ imminent had been rerouted to Stoke Prior.  They had been hiring on and off for years, but with decreasing mobility had decided this would be their last hire. But not their last boating holiday - a hotel boat for their next trip!

We noticed that the bottom locks gates appear to have weed-control fabric tacked over them.  At a couple of the locks this has started to come loose below the waterline, and I imagine would present a problem to boats going up if they drifted too far back. 

We discovered from a CRT chap a couple of days later that it is indeed weed-control fabric and it’s supposed to help stop the bottom gates leaking.  It doesn’t seem to be terribly effective - it's meant to be permeable for goodness' sake! - and the loose bits can’t be removed until he can get a boat to work from.

We stopped at the Hawford moorings for a late lunch, then decided to stay put.  We’d gone far enough for one day.  The forecast tomorrow is dire, and this is a nice place to stop.  I helped our friendly hirers down the Hawford locks - of course, they had to get back to Stoke Prior, so had to move on after lunch - then came back to give Dave a hand rubbing down the little spots on the roof.  They looked like little burst bubbles – as most of them weren’t rusting underneath, we guess that when the roof was repainted a few years ago, the top coat of raddle must have been put on while there were still a few drops of condensation from the wet-dock roof on the boat.  Anyway, they all got treated for rust.

We are trying a new attachment method for the tonneau cover.  Rather than a series of canopy guys, which can be difficult to stretch far enough to reach the hooks (till they perish and stretch too far, or break), I threaded a continuous length of shock cord through the holes.  We’ll see how that goes.  Tomorrow should be rather a test!  No photo though – it was dusk when we put it on and the rain was already starting.

5½ miles, 6 heavy locks