Down Hatton and into Saltisford

Well, we've made it down Hatton and are safely ensconced in the Saltisford Arm, but it's been a long hard day, even if it's only half four. Timings worked out pretty well to plan, mind. We set off in good time and I'd turned through the junction at 7.15 on a drizzly morning. The long chug along the five miles to the top of Hatton went well, Sanity Again swimming well in the deeper, wider waters of the GU.

Shrewley Tunnel was as wet as ever. I can recall a trip up Hatton on a scorching summer's day, one where we stopped at the pub near the top, which was heaving, and I bought two pints of bitter for myself, straightaway, drinking the first pretty well before I'd got out the door to where the rest of the family was waiting. Navigating through Shrewley was then complicated by the fact that the boat roof was scorching hot and the water cascading onto it immediately turned to steam and obscured the view forward.

Today, all was quiet when we got to Hatton Top, so we ran the hose out and spent 30 minutes filling the tank and waiting for a locking partner. None was forthcoming, so loins were girded and we set off down on our own at half nine. Most of the locks were with us and we soon acquired the help of first one and then another volockie. These made a big difference.

There were few boats coming up, though we crossed with a couple further down. As we emerged from the "thick" the volockies left us to it. We'd been changing over jobs about every five locks and carried on in this way. I must say that Hatton has got harder over the years, and I don't think it's just us getting feebler. After Tardebigge and Lapworth we're in reasonable training but still needed the long throw windlass most of the time. In addition, the gates are heavier than ever.

When we first encountered these locks, way back in the late 70s, you could wind a paddle up with one hand on a short throw windlass. Now, it's a two handed job and the mechanism is so worn that you daren't treat the Ham Baker candlestick mechanism as you used, knocking the retaining stirrup off to let the paddle wind itself down smoothly. If you tried that today, it would either jam halfway down or crash down, damaging the paddle.

The weather gradually improved until the sun came out and necessitated removal of waterproof tops. We emerged from the bottom lock at 1.15, so three and three quarter hours to do the flight, not pushing it, usually only working the towpath side paddles. It had clouded over again, so waterproofs were popped back on.

Just as well, as the heavens opened as we entered the Saltisford Arm and drenched us. We're on a visitor mooring just past the winding hole. It's a bit short for us, but a boat leaving tomorrow will enable the manager to do a bit of a shuffle and give us a full 70 foot by the new office.

With that in mind, I've set up an Ocado delivery for Wednesday morning. We plan to stay until Thursday. It's £5.50 per night, now, with no free first night unless you join the Trust, but it's still worthwhile to have a secure mooring near the city centre and with facilities to boot.

Keith and Jo on Hadar are still here and we look forward to catching up with them before we go.

Location:Saltisford

More good travelling

2nd & 3rd May

After a great night's sleep on Friday night (and no wonder) we had a great start to the boating day on Saturday. We chugged merrily along to the top of Knowle Locks, through blissfully rural canal, in warm Spring sunshine. Despite the claims of Carole Sampson in the First Mate Guide, we found no real mooring at the top of the locks, just some bollards for the lock landing and water point.

This was a bit of a blow, as we'd planned to get some bread and milk from the shops. We needed to water and to run the washing machine, but with the shops about 10 to 15 minutes walk away, it wasn't practical to visit them in the time taken to fill the water tank.

Having filled up we set off down the locks. I'd heard that they had a reputation for being heavy, despite the fact that the lock gear is the same as that on Hatton, which can be a bit hard, but by no means impossible. It may be that the Knowle flight is not so well maintained or something, but they were indeed hard work.

In addition, the design of the side ponds means that the lockwheeler has a long trek between each lock and the next. This led to me failing to get lock 3 open before letting Sheila on Sanity out of 2. It looked full, and indeed the top gates were swinging when I first saw them, but having emptied 2 into the pond between, I needed to lift a paddle to get the gate open again.

Whilst doing this, Sanity decided to do a little waltz in the wide pound, and finally jammed herself across it, sideways on to the gate. A serious bit of revving and hauling on the bow line eventually persuaded her into the lock, but after that, Sheila refused to leave one lock before the next was open.

The only other moment of note was much more fun: a rook came wandering round and perched on the balance beams as we locked down. Sheila saw it wait until the lock was almost empty, when it hopped down onto the cill and hoovered up the minnows trapped there.

Fish rescue the corvid way.

At Lapworth we tied just before the junction and I popped into the handy shop there, getting a loaf of bread, some pasties and some milk. We ate lunch straight away, then boated on to the top of Hatton. There's not much visitor mooring in the cutting, but some of the long term mooring was clearly not occupied, so we borrowed one of those for the night.

Elanor was able to join us for the evening, parking on the little bit of car park behind the Top Lock cafe. She brought us some decent meat from the Barton Turn butcher, so we had boned and rolled shoulder of lamb last night, with an onion and mint sauce, mashed spud and summer cabbage.

This morning I gave her a hair a clip (eight on top and six on the sides) and she went off at half nine to get a riding lesson. We had moved to the top of the flight at nine, but after waiting half an hour, there was no sign of another boat turning up to share down with us so off we went down the 21.

This turned into another good morning's boating. There were lots of gongoozlers about, of course, it being a Bank Holiday Sunday, but they were in cheerful mood, and gave us someone to chat to as we went down the 21.

As usual we alternated lockwheeling and steering in blocks of five. My right shoulder had informed me during the night that it was not best pleased with the work it had been expected to do down Knowle, so we got out the long throw windlass for Hatton.

This made a lot of difference, and I'm feeling the benefit now. We emerged from the bottom lock at 12.40, so three hours ten for the flight, not a record breaking time, but not bad for the two of us and one boat. We had a fair number of the locks with us, to be honest, there being steady traffic up the flight all morning.

We went straight on to the Cape, tying on the visitor mooring above the Cape Two. Shortly after we'd done so, Brian Jarrett came by on Kyle, and I was able to present him with two cans of used engine oil to fuel his Russell Newbery.

After lunch we went in search of a micro cache somewhere near Kate Boats, but couldn't find it, partly because the nettles were all over the likely site, partly because there were wandering muggles everywhere, and possibly because, as I realised when we got back to the boat, I'd not switched the Garmin back to the standard datum from the British OS one I was using in the Lakes.

Tomorrow we plan to take a day off from boating, staying on this mooring and going in to Warwick, then the day after we'll boat through Leamington Spa and tie at Radford Semele, ready to start the slog up the other side of the valley.