We
had a disturbed night - the dogs were very unsettled and kept barking.
We discovered why at about 5am. Jasper had a 'noisy tum' and wanted to
go out; when Ian got him off the boat he discovered three vans parked
just up the bank plus 4 or 5 fishermen. By 7am they had all packed up
and gone - were they fish rustlers? The early morning was glorious - here's
our back yard first thing.
We
left Pilgrim's Lock just after 9am and get into Bidford 10am. The approach
along the River is really pretty and there are nice
moorings (with water) at the Recreation Ground just past Bidford Bridge.
We moor and let the boys off to have bit of a run around and then walk
across the Bridge in search of a delicatessen which gets a mention in
the guides. We find a nice bakers, stock up on bread, cakes etc. Ian gets
his paper but we fail to find the delicatessen. Take our life in our hands
to cross back over Bidford Bridge, It may look very attractive from the
River but by foot, it is only wide enough for one car to go over and there
is no pavement. There are, however, little 'outcrops' which you had to
dash between when crossing.
We
leave Bidford at 10.55 after filling with water and cruise gently down
this beautiful river. At Robert Aickman Lock, a very polite little boy
comes up and asks if we mind sharing the lock with them. No problem we
say, but we are bit puzzled as there are no boats moored in the lock approach.
However, we go into the lock and then two 70ft barges tied together with
power to only one come out of a side pond and manoeuvre into the lock
with us. It was an impressive hand on that tiller.
We
exit the lock first and cruise on slowly to George Billington Lock, which
is not that far away. (Nearly all the locks on the Upper Avon are named
after benefactors who donated sizeable sums to help make the River navigable
again). We moor here at 12.55 for a spot of lunch.
We start to pack up ready for
the off at about 2.15 just as a cabin cruiser comes into the lock mooring.
By the time we are ready to start on the lock, they have already prepared
it with both gates open. We ask if they want us to go in first or second
- they are a bit surprised that we think we'll fit in along with them.
Shouldn't be a problem we tell them, we've just come down another lock
with those 2 barges moored in front of you and they are wider than you.
We are asked to go in first and duly do, then the skipper comes up and
says that his wife is too nervous to go down with us, because they had
a bad experience being nearly crushed by a narrowboat in a lock. We say
that we will be tied and the lock is plenty wide enough, but to no avail
so we offer to back out and let them go first as they had prepared the
lock. Offer declined and we carry on down.
The weather and the scenery has been glorious all along the Upper Avon
and as we near Evesham we are looking forward to more of the same.
The lock at Evesham marks the
change from the Upper to Lower Avon and the lock is manned - although
we didn't realise it to start with and spent a little while trying to
work out how to get to it from the mooring stage. At this point, the cabin
cruiser who didn't want to share a lock with us turns up and we feel honour
bound to let them have first 'go' at this lock. We have to hang around
whilst the lock is filled, emptied and filled again ready for us to go
down.
Time
enough for us to take this photo of the unusual Lock Keeper's cottage,
which is directly beside the lock.
Eventually we are waved into
the Lock but it has taken about 30 minutes for us to get through. Because
you can only moor at specified places on the Avon,
and generally the moorings aren't that big (if you're a 60ft narrowboat)
we decide to abandon our original plan of getting to Wyre Lock and instead
moor at Craycombe Turn. Which we do at 6.15. There's a dinghy moored and
the couple are having a picnic but there's no-one else. When they pack
up and leave, it's just us and this glorious view. On the maps, Craycombe
Turn is shown as being very close to the road - there is a small field
between the moorings and the road and it wasn't noisy.
13.75 miles, 6 locks, 6 hrs 55 min (43.75 miles, 88 locks, 36 hrs 5min)
Saturday 3 September
Awake to an overcast morning. But Per Angusta is moored the right way for me to give her lefthand side a clean with this lovely clear Avon water. We've seen a lot of the underwater plants because the water is so clear so Ian decides to check the weedhatch. He is prone below deck when my foot slips off the gunwhales whilst I'm washing the boat and I'm left hanging onto the centre mooring line and the river edge, between the boat and the moorings yelling for help. Ian doesn't hear for what seems like many minutes as my backside gets closer and close to the water. Eventually, I am rescued but will probably have a few bruises.
We leave at about 9.15 and our next stop is Wyre Lock, just after Tiddle Widdle Island and Wyre Piddle (I kid you not). This is a diamond shaped locked and it is difficult to know where to put the boat. I'm just saying to Ian that it is odd that the cill isn't marked when he yells that he's caught on the cill. Drop the front paddles and start refilling the lock, until Per Angusta is free. Not long, and she hadn't started to tilt before Ian realised. Get her out of the lock and she seems to handle OK, with everything sounding normal, so off we go. Moor at Pershore recreation ground at 11.35 and I give the dogs some exercise whilst Ian goes off to get the paper, some milk and potatoes.
We leave at 12 and approach Pershore Lock, as with all the locks on the Avon it is against us. On this River the instructions are to leave your exit gates open - so I close one gate and am just walking round to close the other when a small, and I mean small, motorised boat comes upstream. Single crew put ashore who comes up to the lock, opens the other gate, beckons boat in and then makes a huge palaver about getting ropes secured in the lock. Meanwhile, Ian and I close the lock gates. - I can understand the anxiety about securing boats coming up the locks as the water turbulence when the locks start to fill has been something fierce. Pershore Lock has a ground paddle which has to be opened before the gate paddles. I say to the locking crew that I'll let her do the ground paddle as she will know how best to prevent the boat being thrown about. Ian and I open the gates once the lock is full, and Madam Locking Crew boards her boat without so much as a thank you. We move into the lock and along comes a cabin cruiser. 'Do you want to go down with us?' we ask. 'Of course' says the crew. We are surprised, but the elderly skipper and his wife say they have no problems sharing with a narrowboat provided it is roped to the bollards. They are also quite chatty, which comes as something of a surprise. We have found that, particularly on the Lower Avon, people ignore us - it is not like the canals, where there is nearly always a friendly wave or a nod of acknowledgement. Also, the cabin cruisers travel at a fair speed, despite the warnings about not making a breaking wash.
We continue down the Lower Avon which is not as picturesque as the Upper Avon, the landscape is a lot broader. However there are some other sights - noticeably, the craft you meet. Here is a selection of some of the ones we encountered today:
Yes, we really did come straight through the middle of all those sailing dinghies. The bed and the Ladies who Launch were all taking part in an annual raft race over a 3 mile stretch of the Avon between Nafford and Strensham Locks. Just as we come out of Nafford Lock we meet all the rafts who are being sent off in 2 minute intervals. We stay behind the rafts for a while, but the bed soon tires and wave us through.
We
take on water at Strensham Lock - if you do this
and you are a long boat, make sure that you come out of the right-hand
gate because there is not enough space to come out of the left-hand gate
and into the channel before there is a wall. Having extricated
ourselves, we begin the cruise down into Tewkesbury. Decision time - do
we wind and go back the way we came, or do we carry on round the 'Avon'
Ring. A look at Pearsons, indicates that if we come onto the Severn at
Tewkesbury, we can be back on the canals at Worcester in about 4 hours.
This would mean that the dogs (and I) could revert to walking - being
dropped off and picked up at regular intervals - whereas if we go back
up the Avon, then we will have no opportunities except at the designated
mooring places. 
Pearsons
indicates 31 hours to get from Tewkesbury to the Grand Union junction
at Kingswood, and then we know it is under 2 days home from there. We
have 8 and a bit days to go so decide to get back onto the canals as quickly
as possible. We pass from the Avon onto the Severn, heading for Upton
on Severn for the night. Remember I said how happy I was to get onto the
narrow Stratford on Avon Canal? Now look at what we are travelling on!
Arrive at Upton on Severn at 6.45 to find all the moorings taken and boats doubling up. We moor alongside nb Warwick, which in turn is moored alongside another narrowboat. The guy on Warwick is a fender maker and obviously is used to the situation at Upton, he says that at times the narrowboats have been moored 6 deep. Pity the boat on the inside as everybody will be crossing their stern in order to get ashore. There are also wall to wall pubs along the moorings (very picturesque ones, but still an abundance) plus a party cruise ship.
Carry the dogs ashore for a
much needed wee, and walk along the path for a bit until we are met by
a lady walking her 2 year old black and tan cavalier Molly. Remember those
scenes from Lady and the Tramp, where Lady flirts? Well, I swear that's
what Molly did with Jasper and Tris, she was batting her eyelids like
crazy - Jasper did his usual and ran for cover at the sight of another
dog,
Molly's owner pointed us in the direction of a big field where we could
let the boys stretch their legs and we discovered a rich source of blackberries.
Ian always has a plastic bag to hand at blackberry time! Ian collected
a fair quantity of berries and Jasper collected a fair quantity of sheep
dung, by rolling in some fresh droppings. Make it back to the boat, and
Ian showers Jasper down, whilst I cook dinner. And here is our backyard
for the night.
26.5
miles, 5 locks, 9 hrs 5 min (70.25 miles, 93 locks, 45 hrs 10min)
Sunday 4 September
Leave Upton at 9.05 after securing
the Sunday papers, some cash from Mr HSBC and a fender for the bow. 
Within
about 10 minutes, Ian is worried - there are some unusual noises coming
from the engine compartment. Comes to the conclusion we must have done
some damage to the prop shaft or the propeller after all yesterday - but
why didn't we have any problems yesterday. Keeping the revs down at our
normal canal levels (about 10) as opposed to the higher levels of river
work keeps the nasty noises to a minimum. Decide we will have to take
our time. After about an hour, everything changes and all the engine sound,
etc is back to normal. Step the revs up and we actually make Worcester
in just over 3 hours.
Have to say, the Severn got a bit boring - there really wasn't that much to see except cabin cruisers rushing about and lots of anglers. Diglis River Lock was huge. They have these cables covered in a rubber tube and you have to put your ropes through these to keep you steady and to the side. As we came out of the lock, there were 3 guys in canoes waiting to go down - I'd have carried my canoe down!
A short cruise and we're at the turn onto the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. Ian doesn't spot it until he is past and has to go back - still turning isn't a problem on a river this size. Back onto the canals and we begin getting cheery waves again. It is turning into a real scorcher of a day. I have the boys off walking along the towpath and it is getting a bit hot for them - I signal Ian to stop to pick us up at the next bridge, which he does. But immediately he tries to move off, there is no power to the boat and the water is making peculier patterns around the prop. We can't stay under the bridge as there is a boat coming the other way, so limp through and tie up just before Bridge 10, in the winding hole. Ian gets his arm down the weedhatch and finds the reason for our problems, an extremely large bomber jacket! Relieved that this is the cause of our problems, we set off again, running the gauntlet of an angling competition - a fisherman every few yards, all using these very long rods which have to be wheeled in every time a boat goes by.
We
carry on through the Worcester locks and out into the countryside. The
dogs and I walk for a good hour and a half, with a good few locks along
the way. We leave Worcester behind and are back out into the countryside.
Lots more to see now - this is more like it.
Eventually moor for the night at Dunhampstead where Ian promises me a meal out at the Fir Tree Inn: except they aren't doing food tonight as they are closing for a major refurbishment starting tomorrow.
So here is my backyard for tonight, plus Ian & Tris enjoying some refreshment after a long and hot day.
18.5 miles, 16 locks, 9 hrs (98.75 miles, 106
locks, 54 hrs 10min)