Saturday 24th May 2008
Location: Woolhampton, Berkshire, Kennet & Avon
Today: 8 miles, 10 locks. Total distance: 1363 miles. Total locks: 941
Pulled the pins around 08:00 and headed on down into Newbury. Moored up beside Victoria Park and walked the short distance to Sainsbury’s to top up with wine etc. The next supermarket close to the canal is on the Thames at Reading but it can be a problem getting a mooring there so rather than chance it we decided to do a big shop at Newbury before leaving the area.
Carried on down to Woolhampton and moored up. We will probably be here for a few days as the weather forecast is for high winds and heavy rain!!
There has been a noticeable increase in boat traffic today, lots of folk out and about for the bank holiday weekend. It seems strange to see so many boats out and about once again – summer must be here!!!
Monday 26th - My son Glenn's birthday today, happy 30th Glenn
Well we are still here at Woolhampton sitting out the weather. It is 11:00 and it has been chucking it down since 03:00 this morning.
We are keeping our fingers crossed that all this rain is not going to have too much effect on the river Kennet and the Thames. The Kennet was in flood when we joined it from the Thames back in March – we don’t seem to have a lot of luck with rivers, every time we go near one it starts to flood!!! The day after we left the Thames it too was closed by floods.
We have the Woolhampton lock and swing bridge just ahead of us, it can be a bit hairy when there is a good flow of fresh water running on the Kennet. British Waterways have been dredging the river just below the lock which should help a bit ???
Should have known it would turn out wet as it is the Crick boat show this weekend – at least they had dry weather for the start of the show this year.
Our plans are to spend one more night on the K&A somewhere down near Reading then jump on the Thames with a one day EA license and shoot up to Oxford to join the Oxford canal – all we need is some reasonable weather. Still, can’t complain as the weather has been good for the last few weeks.
Spent an hour or so catching up with other boater’s web sites this morning, it’s not often I get the time. There are some advantages to having some bad weather. Noticed a mention of nb Petroc on nb Epiphany’s web site. It turns out that nb Petroc is moored just behind us and that Gill and Geoff also hail from Cornwall. Photo below.
Current Mooring
Growing gates
They leak a bit as well
nb Petroc
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