Today we have travelled the last 12 miles of the River Severn that we can do and are moored, still on the river, at Stourport. Tomorrow we will go up the locks on to the Staffs and Worcester Canal.
It has been a nice day weatherwise, mild, bright and calm, very good for river cruising. We left Worcester at about 7-45am and arrived here about 4 hours later. We had to negotiate 3 manned locks on the way, Bevere, Holt and Lincomb. All were full of fish according to Ken’s fish detecting equipment. They obviously know where they are safe from the fisherman’s hook!
Between locks I spent a happy (not) hour hoovering and mopping up the mud which I deposited all through the boat this morning by not banging my trainers before I put them on. When we returned to the boat yesterday we had to walk along the towpath where the river had come up a couple of days before and got caked in mud! Aaaargh!
When we approached the visitor moorings at Stourport I was straining my eyes to read a notice which said something about the Edward Elgar trip boat. It turned out that these moorings are reserved for them on Wednesdays so that wasn’t a problem as today is Friday.
Also as we approached the moorings a lock keeper came running down the bank to inform us that the lock was out of action for about 2 hours while they re-fitted the safety ladder. Apparently a boat had hit it and loosened it making it unsafe to use if anyone fell in.
As we had no intention of going up the locks today, now that we had a mooring on the river, this didn’t affect us either.
We went in to town for perishables so we don’t have to stop in Kidderminster tomorrow on the way through. We then went to The Crown near the fairground. Mercifully the fairground didn’t seem to be operational today so the pub was quite quiet. The Crown is in fact not a Wetherspoons any more but has been taken over by Hawthorn Inns, we noticed little difference.
We are hoping for a nice quiet evening on the pontoons but there is a pub just above us here called the Angel and it has outside seating. With it being a Friday and with the weather being nice we are not holding out much hope! At least the fair is quiet —- at the moment!
