Monday 30th September
The church clock at Kinver was chiming 8 this morning as we left our mooring and it was a fine dry day. Our planned trip today was to get to travel 10 miles and 7 locks from Kinver to Stourport, with a shopping stop at Sainsbury’s in Kidderminster.
All started well and we had soon descended Whittington Lock, passed through the tiny 65 yd Cookley Tunnel which has a road with a row of houses over the top of it (see photo) and arrived at Wolverley Lock just as someone had gone down. This was the boat we had followed the day before yesterday. As I was setting the lock a chap appeared from below on a bike. He stopped, got off his bike and closed the top gate for me. Then he took off his rucksack, produced a windlass and wound one of the bottom paddles.There is a road bridge over the lock so I couldn’t see his boat waiting from where I was standing. He was chatting about how many boats he had seen this morning, apparently 4 were going the same way as us but none were going the other way.
As Ken was taking our boat out of the lock I asked this chap if he was coming up. He said no, he had only got a windlass and was getting a boat next year! Bless, he just liked helping people do the locks. As we left he started setting the lock again although there wasn’t a boat coming in either direction.
At Wolverley Court Lock we expected to come across the boat we had been following, which we did, they were already in the lock but there was also another boat waiting. They had been moored at the lock over night and as so many boats had already gone past them this morning they decided they had better leave. Unfortunately this meant they were now in front of us as well.
How unfortunate was this? We were about to find out! I helped them down the lock and then reset it for ourselves. We went in, descended and ……………. one of the gates wouldn’t open far enough for us to get out, aaargh! I swung it back and forth hoping to dislodge what ever it was that was stopping it from opening- no luck. Ken got the boat hook and from the front of the boat poked about behind the gate but couldn’t find anything. We refilled the lock then emptied it again – no luck.
After about 30 minutes of titting about we phoned CRT and the woman I spoke to said they would send someone out. They would be there in about 30 mins if they were in the area! We refilled the lock again and reversed out on to the lock approach. Just as we were doing this nb Ursula appeared wanting to come up (we had met them before a couple of years ago at Bollington). We explained what was happening and the chap had a go at the obstruction with his boat pole but apart from mangling the end of his pole up he had no luck either.
So we all had a cup of tea and stood about yarning. After about an hour two blokes from CRT arrived. They had a sort of rake thing on a long pole which they used to remove a large lump of water logged wood from behind the gate. This did not immediately cure the problem but after a bit more raking the gate closed and nb Ursula was on her way. The CRT chaps hung around to make sure we didn’t have any problems and 2 hours after we got there we finally left Wolverley Court Lock.
This delay prompted a revision of our plans and we decided not to stop in Kidderminster to go shopping but carried on straight to Stourport. By the time we arrived not only was it well past our usual pub time but it was also raining quite hard! We passed two more boats on our way here and both said it was really busy. We were fearing the worst about not being able to find a mooring. As it happened there were only two other boats on the 5 day moorings at the top of York Street Lock and none at all on the moorings outside The Black Star.
We moored on the 5 day moorings at the top of York Street Lock. The whole trip, including the 2 hour wait at the lock, took 7 hours. Of course we then went straight to the pub!
We had intended to stay here for a couple of days consolidation but in light of the weather forecast for later in the week we have decided to hot foot it down to Gloucester as quick as possible. With this in mind (and as we had missed Sainsburys), after dinner we went to the Coop for a few supplies to tide us over until we get there.
So tomorrow we are getting up at stupid o’clock and going to Upton (if we can get in).
