Where, oh where, is Evelyn? 11th August 2019

Sunday 11th August 2019
Compton to The Round Oak, south of B45
4.75 miles, 9 locks

A quick trip to Sainsburys was made first thing for that all important Sunday paper.

Admittedly not that many locks to do, but my knee is making them harder and harder. When we headed north we had our 10 year old granddaughter with us.  Oh how we wished she was with us again, but as I type this on Monday 12th, she is winging her way across the "Pond" for a fabulous holiday in Canada.    I am sure they will have a fantastic time.

Not much caught my eye as we made our way along the first five locks of the day - they came and they went.  Some were ready for us, others weren't, one even had a boat emerging as we arrived and another had one arriving as we were due to leave - every little helps as they say.

A boat appears as we are almost ready to leave, so no need to close the gates.

 

 Hopefully this meant the next lock would be ready for us

Some of these locks have rather steep slopes / awkward steps leading down to get back onto the boat as we leave a lock

Monty thought twice about these steps and I thought very carefully before gingerly clambering down!

 What better pastime on a sunny Sunday morning - a game of cricket.  So very British.

I don't think they had been playing long

 Twenty minutes later we arrived at Bratch Locks - I suspect rain stopped play!

But not for us - we had to go on rain or not

No one was in sight, so we went to read the boards to make sure we did things correctly.   Before we had finished reading a volunteer lock keeper appeared and told us a boat was coming up.  The rain did not last long, so it would be a dry journey down for us.  The usual procedure when they are busy is for 3 boats to go up and then 3 down, so if you arrive with three boats waiting ahead of you, you could be in for a very long wait.  Thankfully there was no queue today.  In fact the lock keeper said that this summer has been painfully quiet.  Apparently on the Gloucester/Sharpness canal they usually expect 900 passages through the lift bridges in July - this July they had only 500.

 Even though these locks are a flight and not a staircase the pound between each lock is only a matter of a few feet long, hence it has to be one way traffic.

We made it down with the help of two lock keepers and were able to dispose of rubbish at the bottom lock.

Our last lock of the day - Bumblehole (I love the name) and there is a boat emerging, so an easy trip down for us

 Under Houndel Bridge (No 45) and

we moored up as far from the road as possible.  A good mooring and one we had all to ourselves.