Friday 19th July
Today we left Gloucester and have travelled about 4 miles and no locks and are moored near Sellars Swing Bridge. We had a good trip starting at 9 am as soon as Llanthony lift bridge was available after peak traffic times. The bridge keeper also doubled as the moorings enforcer today so we told him when we were leaving before we went on today’s mooring list. He said he would put the bridge up when he saw us coming.
Next stop the facilities wharf just through the bridge and there was just room for us. A chap was on the long term moorings washing the seagull crap off his Dutch Barge. He let us use his hose as it was already attached to the tap. Ken had a chat with him and discovered his Dutch Barge, really was a Dutch Barge, built in Holland but was actually designed on a computer in Norwich!
After we had finished with the facilities we travelled a few hundred yards and moored outside Sainsbury’s. We went in and came out £100 later! Now we really can’t get any thing else under the dinette, in the cupboards or in the fridge!
We continued with our journey to Sellars Bridge and moored quite a way upstream from the bridge where the towpath was tree lined. We were hoping for a bit of shade later on and we weren’t disappointed, after about 3 pm the sun disappeared behind these trees and we were basking in glorious shade, hurrah! It’s the first shade we’ve been in for nearly a week. We also had a lovely breeze but that seems to have gone now.
We walked up to The Pilot Inn and sat in the garden right by the bridge watching the bridge keepers …….. well, I was going to say working but as the narrow boats can get under the bridge while it is closed, it only needs to be swung for cruisers and Dutch Barges. As there were only two of them while we were there the bridge keepers were mostly on the phone, having lunch or sleeping!
There was a nice Australian family having lunch at the pub and they found it all very interesting when they did swing the bridge. They were surprised it isn’t electrically operated and the bridge keepers wind it open by hand.
Some of the boats we were moored at Gloucester with have turned up since we got here. Tomorrow we are not sure where we will end up. This canal is only about 16 miles long with no locks so you could do it in a day but we’re not going to. We want to visit Slimbridge, which is accessible from Shepherd’s Patch (great name) and we want to see the estuary at Sharpness. We may go up and down a couple of times as it is easy to turn round because it is so wide.
