Devizes Sunday 27 April 2014

Last night we ate in The Barge Inn, this is a pub that does food, not a restaurant that serves beer. The menu is limited but what they do, they do well. It is definitely a colourful place to eat and drink. They have live music on a Saturday night but it doesn't start till 9pm or later so you can eat, drink and chat if you want to before it starts. Some of the outfits being worn by the clientele were shall we say interesting. Well we eat there again, YES.

Today started bright but soon it started drizzling and by the time we reached Devizes it was chucking it down, we had 4.5mm of rain yesterday, we have nearly had that much today already. After filling with water, the water point is near the end of the piled mooring, not a dedicated mooring for water, we were off at 10 am.

We passed an interesting looking converted barge as we made our way along in weak sunshine so to be drizzle. I just love the lines of that transom. This is not an original K&A barge that has been converted but a replica built by RLL boats from steel, the original was oak 

There are a few swing bridges along this section all pivoted on the offside  to give clear access for a horse tow line. However British Waterways has provided very good off side moorings where you can tie up to work the bridges, It would be so useful if CaRT could do something like this along the South Oxford canal. As we pushed on we passed another White Horse cut into the hills. I am not sure what the people are doing,  sorry about the pylon but I had to snap it through a gap in the hedge, In places the reeds are encroaching well into the canal, its about 15ft wide here so just slightly wider than some of the boats that regularly use this waterway.

The owner of the offside moorings obviously has a sense of  humour, he has erected signs at each approach requesting that you slow down and then part way along he has put this one up, I didn’t notice one in the opposite direction.

As we came into Devizes we were welcomed by this display in one of the gardens, just after we passed it I spotted a chap in a lifejacket waving to what I guessed to be the trip boat coming in the other direction on a blind bend. It seems that were having a training day and were going to wind right on that corner as its a bit wider there. It would have been slightly easier if they had held back until I was round the corner rather than coming straight ahead and putting their bow into the apex ready to drive the stern round. At this point the skys opened and we carried on into the town to moor on the first vacant visitor mooring we came to. If the weather improves we may have a look round and move later, if not we will just stay here and go down the flight first thing in the morning, that is forecast to be the period of lightest rain.

If you would like to know more about the building of the Kennet and Avon canal follow this link for Hungerford virtual museum.

Today’s Map