Into the marina

Friday 11^th September; Vines park to Droitwich Spa marina, and home

It was sunny first thing.  We were up bright and early and away by 8.30.  The swing bridges in Droitwich are notoriously tricky, but although the first one was very heavy to move I managed perfectly well. 

The first swing bridge

The second was a different matter however.  Unlocking the padlock can be very tricky!  Once closed, the bridge moves back a little and the padlock gets jammed against the vertical post that holds everything in place.  So you have to lean against the bridge and push hard to allow the padlock to hang freely and then you can unlock it - if your arms are long and/or strong enough.  It was quicker to wait for someone to cross the bridge to help me than for Dave to tie up on the landing and come to my aid.  Lucky for me a friendly gentleman soon came along and lent a hand.  I swung the bridge closed again, but still couldn’t manage the padlock – I haven't been doing enough locks to build up my arm strength enough.  But an older lady with a walking frame offered to lean on the gate!  That worked a treat.  Foolishly I failed to take a photo to show the difficulty.  The last swing bridge is over Barge lock but that one was quite easy.

The navigation uses the little river Salwarpe above Barge lock.  The river carries a lot of silt which drops behind the gates and boaters normally need to open both gates.

Although the rise to the river is never more than a few inches it is strongly advised to always swing the bridge even if you think you can squeeze underneath, even if you are going down.  During the summer there was an accident when, even though the hire company had specifically told the hirers to open the bridge before going in, the steerer thought they would fit and in he went.  They were going down so he would have got away with it except that he hadn’t told the crew.  The one in the well deck stood up, whacked her head on the bridge and spent the rest of the week in hospital.  Fortunately she made a full recovery.

We had no trouble for the rest of the journey except for a wait at the staircase pair where a boat had just arrived at the top and beaten us to it.  By the time we had done a pump-out, sorted out the office admin and found our berth it was midday.  We managed to get away by 4 and had a reasonable drive home.

5 locks, 3 swing bridges, M5 tunnel.

Trip stats;

70 miles and 63 locks; 55 miles 5 furlongs narrow canals, 52 locks; 5 miles 6½ f broad canals (Droitwich Barge canal), 9 locks; 8½ miles large rivers (Severn), 2 large locks.

Tunnels; Dunsley, Cookley, A449, Impney way, M5; a mere 1¼ furlongs underground.

Aqueducts; Sow, Trent.

Swing bridges; 3.

Thanks to Canalplan.uk