Semington Tue 29 April 2014

Last night we walked the whole 281 yards up to The Three Magpies for dinner and were greeted with a warm welcome and good service, several beers, we tried a couple and a nice freshly cooked meal. We managed to miss the rain returning to the boat between showers. In the past 24 hrs we had 7.2 mm of rain, that reading was taken at 10 am this morning.

We waited until the rain stopped before backing up to the water point and filling the tank, finally setting of at 1045 hrs in light drizzle, The weather was quite changeable with the coat going on and off at regular intervals.
This chap stopped grazing and gave me the eye as we went passed, I think he is a Lama but he was the only one in the field with a few sheep.

The Canal and Rivers Trust had issued an alert to say that there was work ongoing at lock 17 so the canal level above the lock would be lowered. They had probably only dropped it by 18” but we dragged the bottom, quite hard at times between lock 18 and 17 so really a bit of dredging is called for.

The swing bridges along here seemed to work quite well and Diana has been able to operate them all without help. some have been reduced to just footpath width and some are still full width with the old steel decks, this one has had a bit of extra ballast added at one end just to trim it up.

In recent years Semington has had a bypass and the canal passes over the road on an aqueduct. It was only opened 10 years ago. I wonder if they had a party last month to celebrate.  For some reason this aqueduct has a divider in the centre of the canal,  I have a feeling the one on the GU over the North Circular is the same. I am not sure the keep right signs are really required but I suppose they had to put some sort of marking at each end.

Just down the canal from here are some very smart dry and wet docks with a fair sized pump out front to empty them which looks as if its powered with a 3 cylinder Lister diesel.  

We moored for the night just below where the Wilts and Berks Canal use to come in, it was just between the trees on this photograph.

The rails are still in place over what use to be a bridge over the entrance to the Wilts and Berks canal and they look as if someone split a length of rolled “I” beam down with a wavy cut to make the top rail.We are actually moored right beside where it will come in when the restoration is completed, as they well be moving the new route slightly west terminating in a marina. At the moment its only a 24 hr mooring I expect we will be gone by when the want to dig through. I am pleased to report that the grass has not re-grown where HRH Duchess of Cornwall cut the first sod of the restoration.

   Today’s map.