Heavy locks on a quiet canal

Wednesday 9^th September; Mildenhall lock to Vines Park

A lovely sunny morning today, and as we weren’t intending to go far we did a few jobs before leaving.

Bonjour from the lock landing opposite, early morning

Among other things Dave finished scrubbing the algae off the port side of the cratch cover and I picked more blackberries to go with the cooking apples we’d brought from the garden.

We left at about 10.30 once the first boat of the day had come past – going downhill towards the river, so we knew the locks would all be empty for us.  The first lock was almost a mile from our mooring so I could finish my cuppa while it was hot. 

This pretty little fern is wall-rue, (Asplenium ruta-muraria), growing out of the mortar on bridge 5 at the bottom lock.

To get to the bottom lock from below, the crew must cross the little road bridge and go through a gate on the offside, easy enough.  The upper landing is back on the towpath side, and you squeeze past the garden hedge (needs cutting) and through a small gate to get to it.  If you are walking to the next lock, which isn’t far, you go through another gate (BW key, Yale lock) to regain the towpath.  The last time we used this lock the swans were occupying the top landing, so I had to cross back over the bridge, past the cottage, and down the access track to return to the towpath.  At least they weren’t there today so Jess and I blithely went through the gate to discover this fellow lying in wait!  He objected, hissing furiously.

Jess has a healthy respect for swans and twinkled nervously round behind me to get past.  The other four Ladywood locks were no problem, as they were all empty and apart from the heavy gates taking a while to get moving we were soon through them all.  There was a fishing match going on so Jess was on the lead for a while.  There was the long drag into Droitwich after that, with reedy bends and some bridges, but apart from the tight bend under bridge 7 at Salwarpe, followed by an attractive little rough mooring, there is not much to say about it until you get to this bridge, which I think must be the railway bridge.

The graffiti (just scrawly tags) on the towpath side has kept itself to the edge of the mural

Apart from the hire boat before we started out, we hadn’t seen another moving boat all morning, in fact no other boats at all until we reached Netherwich basin in Droitwich.  We are not a fan of mooring here – yes it is secure, and if you get the spot the mooring side of the water point pontoon (already taken) it is easy and convenient, but all the other pontoons are short, so boats of our length must use their centre line and tying up is awkward.  There are a couple of spots along the park – the better one was taken but we did manage to moor on the other, though the edge isn’t very straight and fenders need to be strategically placed to avoid banging about.  We had hoped to eat at the Gardener’s Arms, where we have had several good meals in the past, but it is now closed and the owner has applied for planning permission to build 2 houses.  So we walked down the High Street to the Talbot, one of seven in the area owned by the Craddock’s brewery in Stourbridge.  I had a pint of Crazy Sheep and Dave had Saxon Gold, and jolly nice they were.  It was a bit crowded so we went back to the boat to eat.

St Augustine’s church at sunset

5½ miles, 5 heavy locks