The Day Of Many Locks

Narrowboat Trip - Day 3

We continued East on th Droitwich Canal, still going in convoy with the friends we met yesterday. Since this was a 4 night trip and the 'Droitwich Ring' can easily be done in 3 days/4 nights, we only intended to cruise for a short time each day. We were anticipating 8 locks today, cruising on the Droitwich and then turning south onto the Worcester & Birmingham canal.

We worked so well with our friends in the other boat, however, that we decided to push on and continue with them for a longer day. We ended up doing 20 locks and 2 days worth of cruising. It was great working together and we enjoyed their company, but the trip suddenly became much more fast-paced than I had anticipated. I was exhausted by the end of it!  

You can see Julie working hard to open the paddle of one of the lock gates to get the water to fill up the lock. There are usually 4 of these at every lock and they are extremely heavy and stiff. I'm sure Julie did more than her fair share but we were both very achy and tired at the end of the day.

My favourite part was a stretch of about an hour and a half with no locks. I finally got the chance to sit in the bow with Dolly on my lap and enjoy the scenery as we pootled down the canal!  We saw many birds, sheep and cows and were stared down by the cows. I'm sure they're used to boats going by, but maybe Dolly was the novelty?

Both boats stopped mid-morning and moored up just after joining the Worcester & Birmingham canal at Hanbury Junction. This gave Dolly a chance to walk around a bit and we all enjoyed bacon sandwiches and tea or coffee. You can see John and Julie in the extra photo, as well as my friend Rhod - 'The Skipper'. The washing line shot was taken just south of Hanbury Wharf where there was a long stretch of permanent moorings. Each boat had their own little garden space along the bank. I'm not sure what happened to this boat after the washing was hung up to dry - maybe they popped to the shops for a pint of milk?

In addition to 20 locks we went through the 200 metre Dunhampstead Tunnel, and went under the M5 twice.  We ended back in Worcester late afternoon, a day earlier than planned.