Quiet night — you’re having a laugh! Did I mention the boat which came down the locks and crashed into the front of us while they were trying to moor up? Yes, pulling the boat back on to the pontoon, facing the flow, with the stern rope, caused their front to glide (not very gently) into ours. Any apology? No.
Cutting a long story short they finally got moored in the space front of us, which was actually a lock approach mooring. We pointed this out and said there was room behind. They said they weren’t stopping long and proceeded to have a bit of a domestic.
Later they left and we thought they had gone but subsequently discovered they had indeed moored behind us. They had two boys one of about 10/11 years and one of about 7/8 years old. They seemed to think it was huge fun to run down the pontoon, past us, to the end and climb up the bank to get off and repeat.
They did this numerous times. When they weren’t doing this some smaller children, whose parents were having a drink at the pub, thought it was a good idea to run up and down the ramp to the pontoon right outside our boat.
We hoped it would rain – but it didn’t. After they had all gone to bed it quietened down. Until that is, a small cruiser, containing a certain amount of inebriated youth, decided it would be good to travel up and down the river singing and shouting until about 2am!
Despite the previous rather disturbed evening and night we were up and about early this morning. It was drizzling a bit when we left Stourport at about 7-45am this morning. We quickly made our way up the two sets of 2 staircase locks and headed through the marina to the waterpoint.
However, when we got there a boat had already come up York Rd lock and was on there. Waiting space is at a premium in that part of the basin so we decided that as we weren’t desperate to fill or empty anything we would carry on up the lock.
This was a good decision because just as we approached the lock a boat came out which would have meant even less waiting room and more tricky manouvreing. We went up the lock to find another 3 boats waiting to come down so we were glad we hadn’t waited. There is another sanitary station at Greensforge and we will be there tomorrow so that’s ok.
After exiting the lock we winkled our way past the visitor moorings which were very well subscribed. In fact we had to pull in just after Lower Mitton bridge to let a Black Prince hire boat pass a long line of moored boats before we could continue.
Things were going well and we arrived at the next lock, Falling Sands Lock, to find it set for us. These locks are not very deep and easy to work so we quickly ascended it and carried on to Caldwall Lock, on the outskirts of Kidderminster.
Here were 2 CRT men bending a metal railing back into shape round the spill weir. God knows how that got broken off and bent at right angles. Must have been vandalism because it’s hard to see it being done accidentally.
Unfortunately Kidderminster seems to have a dodgy element to it. The lock winding mechanisms are kept locked here to prevent them from being opened and the pounds drained. Grafitti and vandalism would appear to be a problem.
As we came out of Caldwall Lock it started raining again, quite hard this time. And this continued on and off, more on than off while we did the town lock in Kidderminster.
After leaving Kidderminster there was a brief respite from the rain and the sun actually struggled out but this was to be short lived and at Wolverley Court Lock the heavens absolutely opened!
We had passed a hire boat from Stourport moored just before we got to the lock and we thought they were waiting for the rain to stop before continuing but they arrived at the lock as we were waiting for a boat to come down.
Bless them, they then proceeded to get into all sorts of trouble trying to get in to the bank to wait behind us. First they came too far and had to reverse up, then they reversed straight into the bank grinding the prop on all sorts. The chap leapt off but he had the stern rope with him not the centre rope so as he pulled the back in the front went round and this culminated in them being broadside across the canal.
The two women on the boat were trying to throw him a rope but they were too far from the bank by this time. The chap instructed them to reverse the boat but unfortunately they went forward and were even further away. Eventually they got the boat in to the bank just in time for the boat which was coming down the lock to get past.
All the time this was going on the rain was getting harder and harder. When the chap managed to get up to the lock where I was he said, ‘That wasn’t a very good start!’
We continued to Wolverley and moored just before Wolverley Lock. The tv signal here is rather dodgy and we have it tuned to BBC at the moment for the first 2 football matches then we have got to retune it in a different direction to get ITV tonight for the last one!
We went off to The Lock Inn for a couple before the first match started. It was ages before the hire boat appeared. Tomorrow we are heading for Swindon.
