That's it for 2019! 3rd October

Thursday 3rd October 2019
South of Bridge 41, Astwood to Droitwich Spa Marina
2.5 miles, 9 locks

Our lovely mooring remained ours overnight with very little passing boat traffic.  An idyllic last mooring of the year.  One boat came past early this morning beating us to the locks at Astwood.  The locks tend to leak overnight, so would probably have needed to be filled before we could enter, so we think we lost very little time by not being first. 

Monty alert as usual looking for the boat as it heads towards Astwood top lock

 The weather was dry, but chilly with a lot of clouds around.

The sun was hiding behind the clouds, but it was not coming out to play today.

 Having had an abundance of water yesterday, today the canal was definitely a little down

with no water running into the by-washes

We made good progress and were fairly quickly at the penultimate lock of the flight with the lovely lock cottage

 The garden is definitely entering its winter phase. 

Once we were down the last lock there was time for a cuppa before we arrived at Hanbury for the final three locks of this year.

What is that up there?  Yes a little bit of blue sky, but not enough for a sailor's suit.

When we arrived at Hanbury there was a boat coming up and two volunteer lock keepers on duty, so an easy passage for us was ensured

 and there at the bottom is the marina.

All that was left to do was call in for diesel, a bag of coal and an electric card before returning to our berth where we are likely to stay until next March/April.

Our statistics for this short autumn cruise are as follows:

46.25 miles, 100 locks, 6 swing bridges, 10 tunnels, 18 aqueducts and we travelled under motorways on 4 occasions.

For 2019 they are as follows:

555 miles, 457 locks, 47 swing bridges, 27 tunnels, 152 aqueducts and we travelled under motorways on 31 occasions - definitely better than being on them!

Of the 122 nights we spent on board we had 31 days of wet cruising and a further 28 days when it rained after we had moored up.  It would seem that our perception of a very wet season was not imagined.  Let's hope for a better 2020 cruising season.