The boat in front of us last night is heading towards London where they're meeting 2 other boats and heading over the channel to France! I'm very impressed but have no wish to do it myself. I was trying to get them to write a blog as it would be interesting to keep track of their progress, so shall look out for it.
This is the boat - I took this so I'd remember the name - my memory isn't that great for names!
...and yes - we have got to Newbury and have had a pretty good day.
At the end of the first hour we'd travelled over a mile, done 2 locks and 2 bridges, got the washing done and had a cuppa. I felt that was pretty impressive.
We have been seeing slightly less of the river and slightly more of the canal today and from now on I shall feel more comfortable calling it the Kennet and Avon canal, although officially it's been this since we came on it off the Thames. There have been lots of bits of river flowing in and out but no current as strong as the affair yesterday!
This is the second and last of the turf locks we'll find. This one was not as deep as the last and in slightly better repair. There were actually decent posts to attach the ropes to and being prepared for the worst, I suppose it wasn't such a shock as the first one.
I was pretty much at the front of the lock and was surprised to see how long it was behind me. Probably the longest lock we've come through since the Thames.
We heard a cuckoo today - it was calling merrily for ages in some woods we went past. I haven't heard one for years. We used to have them in the woods near where we lived in Dorset, but the last couple of years we were there they had disappeared. I know they're a pest, but they really are one of the sounds of early summer.
This is the view while waiting for Bulls Lock - John had a certain amount of difficulty getting across the flow coming from the right, but once on the bollards it was pretty calm and I went into the lock with a certain smugness, right up to the moment that I realised I'd taken the wrong line and had a bit of a bang into the side - oops! Pride comes before a fall as they say.
This is it from the lock - you can't really see the flow coming out which is a shame as it's quite impressive.
Thought this was a bit odd! It looked as if it had been made out of giant Meccanno.
We have still seen no boats going in our direction and only 2 going the other way. That was until we got here, in Newbury. 2 boats have just gone past us going our way. We have seen our previous neighbours from Oxford and Reading and are hoping that they might join up with us for the next few locks. We are going to stay here tomorrow and they aren't sure so we shall see. It would be so much easier to have someone else in the locks. Mind you today most of the locks have been in our favour, thanks to the 2 boats that we passed until we got a few locks away. There have been no more electric bridges but several hand operated ones.
This is the view from our bedroom window - Newbury Marina - at least we think it is. There appear to be a couple of different ones and none of them have signs that are obvious.
We've topped up with Diesel today and are quite pleased to find that we've done pretty well so far. 162l of diesel from the marina.
A quiet day here tomorrow, so I may not blog unless something exciting turns up.
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