Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

TO GLOUCESTER AND BACK

August 1996

We resume the story of our 1996 Jubilee celebrations the morning after the finish of the BCN Marathon Cruise. We were due back in the Black country for some more events later in August and decided to have a run to the Severn and possibly the Gloucester and Sharpness first.

The only photography I did during this run was in Gloucester itself.

We were delayed by Orinthia going walkabout again. We discovered that she had explored at least one other boat last night, Thistle (Simon & Mary). Wendy was worried in case she had stowed away on the posh boat that had been next to us, and walked to Farmer's Bridge locks to see if she could find them and ask. But they seemed not to have gone that way. As Wendy got back, so did Orinthia. Ian had already left for home. We arranged to leave Gary's battery on his boat at Sherborne Street later. We went down to Salvage Turn to wind, then went back to Sherborne Street Wharf , where Richard sorted the engine stop button and the electrics (where the fault was as I had thought), and also drilled a drain-hole in the battery box. He put our battery and Gary's on charge. Wendy shopped & used the launderette again: this time the drier packed up!

We got away at 17:06 and headed down the Worcester & Birmingham Canal to King's Norton junction and the Stratford-on-Avon Canal, where we moored at The Horse Shoe by bridge 3. Wendy went to see if the pub was any good for food, but decided it was too noisy. However I went later and thought differently.

We slept a bit late and started off at 08:59 in rainy weather. We had a lot of queuing for locks and moored below lock 27 at 18:20. It was noisy from the motorway, but we expected to sleep through it, which we might have done but for an almost-repeat of our experience at Buckby a week before, put right this time by moving the boat along to clear the offending ledge. Earlier, Orinthia had come back soaked from a thunderstorm.

Setting off at 08:53 we discovered that had we gone on one more lock, we would have found good moorings below lock 28 (by lengthsman Pete Chamberlain's cottage). Once again we were in a very slow procession. Because we'd moored above the Fleur de Lys, at each lock we found one more boat in the queue than there had been before. Most frustrating! At Preston Bagot bottom lock, an idiot boat couldn't make up its mind what it was doing and prevented us getting to the downstream lock-landing, so I had to do an unexpected scramble onto the roof of the boat, during which my Psion went into the cut..

By Wooton Wawen we were beginning to meet some uphill boats, but they didn't seem to speed things up at all. In the Wilmcote flight, Pete and a colleague Ian have laid the hedges traditionally to help wildlife, especially small mammals. Very helpful for cats, we imagined, which is probably not what they had in mind. We stopped below Wilmcote bottom lock at 17:57. We probably could have got to Stratford that night, but all the decent moorings would have gone, so we decided to stay here : at least it looked good for the cats.

Orinthia was so pleased with the hedge that she took a long walkabout in the morning and we weren't able to start until 12:07. We used the water point as one comes into Stratford, then went on to arrive at Bancroft Basin at 1430. We found a nice mooring we have used before, just inside the basin as you come in under the bridge, so decided to stop here to shop and rest. I replaced my Psion and bought a new barbecue. Wendy disposed of the old one in a handy skip. We bought books for most of the family, but couldn't find anything for Josh, my elder nephew. We found that Safeway was here no longer : re-located to a new superstore, presumably miles from anywhere, let alone the navigation.

Wendy tried to shop but found nothing but a grotty Somerfields, so we set off at 10:59 and locked down into the Avon, one of our favourite rivers. We stopped for the night below Workman Bridge, Evesham, at 17:02, a very pleasant mooring. The book says they charge to moor here, but nobody approached us. Wendy again tried to shop but found nothing but another grotty Somerfields.

We'd hoped for an early start, but were put off by heavy rain. We wondered what the weather was like in Wales, and what condition the Severn would be in. We set off at 08:09. Some of the Lower Avon locks were manned by volunteers for the weekend. The weather remained mixed. At Tewkesbury we stopped before Avon lock to see what conditions were like on the Severn. The lock-keeper said there's not much current running, and no tide due above Gloucester for several days. But he was worried about us reaching Gloucester before the lock-keeper went off duty just before 18:00. By my calculations we should do it in time. So we locked through into the Severn and set out to make a fast passage downstream.

The lock-keeper at Lower Lode was also worried about our timing. There was very little current running, so we didn't expect any difficulties manoeuvering before Gloucester Lock. This turned out to be the case, and the lock was open already with another boat coming out as we approached. We had a good 20 minutes to spare. Easy-peasy, despite windy conditions! We locked up into Gloucester Docks and moored at 17:55 on the opposite side of the docks to the big warehouses. It was a shoe-horn job to get in, but a cruiser moved a few feet to make it possible for us to get into a mooring the right way round for the cats. I went exploring and (as well as a trio of decent pubs serving Ushers, Wadworths and Arkells respectively) found a Chinese take-away which suited us for the evening. There was heavy rain later.

Because of the time lost on the Stratford Canal, we hadn't time to do justice to the Gloucester & Sharpness, so decided to spend the morning in the Waterways Museum before heading back. I had mixed feelings about the museum: a lot for kids and people who know little about the waterways, but not much for folk who know more. But it was very good to see the trow Spry fully restored and down here for her sailing trials, if sad that they don't plan for her to sail regularly. The museum shop provided more presents for the family (as well as some for ourselves). We'd like to come back here sometime and look at some of the other museums.

My brother Derek (visiting from the USA) 'phoned at lunch-time, to confirm our rendezvous with the family for Tuesday. They had booked rooms in a hotel close to Stourport and suggested we go out for a meal together on Monday evening before a day on the boat on Tuesday.

We were away again as soon as the lock-keeper came back from lunch and locked down into the river at 13:51. We cruised to Upton-on-Severn, where we moored at 18:15 outboard of another boat and were soon middle boat of a raft. The outside boat had to put ashore some first-timers, who had difficulty clambering over our two boats, and damaged our new barbecue in the process! I'd intended to explore the town & pubs but didn't because of heavy rain.

We had planned with the other boats in our raft that we would all set off at 07:00, but the outboard boat showed no sign of life until we other two both started our engines. We all moved off at 07:25 and had an excellent run up-Severn to Stourport where there was a long queue for the locks into the basin, including a couple of inexperienced hire-boats and a cruiser who didn't want to share with a steel boat. One hire-boat steered into locks on both mooring ropes and ended leaving its stern-rope trailing in the water! The woman from the cruiser & I worked several boats through. We now understand the principle of these unusual unbalanced staircases here: in each pair, one fill of the upper lock provides water for two fills of the lower. In the basins we had a problem locating the boatyard, but finally found it and got pumped out. We bought diesel, but not as much as we could have because we didn't like the price. We went on to our usual mooring here, above York St. lock at 17:05. My brother Derek, sister-in-law Phyllis and four teenage or sub-teenage kids came and we had pleasant meal at The Old Beams.

We found that shopping wasn't as good here as it used to be. Tesco had no free-range anything (but some good carrots). There was a huge Co-op store with no Freedom Foods and a delicatessen with no free-range chicken. The family arrived and we set off with them at 10:47 a cheerful start. En route we spotted a big new Sainsbury's just above Kidderminster lock. We made a lunch stop before Wolverley lock, where Orinthia went walk-about but came back fairly soon.

By the time we reached Stourton junction we were running late, and both Wendy & I thought about dropping the family at Stewponey, but neither said anything, so we went on as planned to Wordsley junction and the Town Arm, mooring a little before Stourbridge basin at 20:40. Derek & I went off by taxi to fetch the car from Stourport. On our return finding Stourbridge was easy; finding the right bit of Stourbridge rather trickier. Then the family set off for their hotel. They were moving to Brum the next day. So were we, but more slowly.

We started at 08: 08, winded in Stourbridge basin, went back to Wordsley junction and set off up the sixteen, which were in a strange mixed state of for-and-against. Around Buckpool we had help from the lock-keeper who lives there. He is a townee who has taken the job after a redundancy and is loving it and trying to learn as much as he can about the country mainly from Carol-at-the-shop who has set up three hibernacula by lock 10 for breeding grass snakes. Dadford's shed has been restored and is now the base of a firm of boat-builders and -restorers headed by Phil Speight.

After Leys junction we went past Delph Marine, where our boat was built, and they appeared to be closed. Later we enquired of other people in the trade locally and found they had packed up some time ago, and Alf is believed to be working for a firm on the Shroppie. We went straight up the "nine", to Park Head junction and on to the Dudley no.2 Canal. Approaching Windmill End we came across some pleasant kids calling "Nice boat, Mister" and asking if there was going to be a boat show. We didn't tell them they'll have to pay to get in this time, unlike 1991. We stopped at Windmill End and I went to the Little Dry Dock (which for those readers who don't know it is a pub, not a dock) and was served although it was theoretically closed. Met Les Cardy (in charge of boat entries for the "National") there and told her of our concerns about the mooring we'd been allocated up the Bumblehole Branch, having been up there during the Marathon.

Then we went through Netherton Tunnel Branch onto the New Mail Line and headed west. After Factory locks the cut was horribly weedy, as we've come to expect here at this time of year. We moored before Wolverhampton top lock at 19:10, finding a mooring the right way round for the cats to use the kitchen window to come and go. The locks were closed until Friday while a gate on lock 5 was being repaired after a collision.

I went home early in the morning for an Excalibur envelope -stuffing. Wendy shopped. The locks opened that afternoon, a day earlier than expected. Derek, Josh & Brian came to pick up some stuff they'd left on board (including a lap-top!). The next stage of the cruise was to the . Click here to read it.