Tewkesbury Saturday 17 August 2019

Day : Saturday
Date : 17 August 2019
Start : 1000
Finish : 1430 Tewkesbury

I have uploaded our proposed route to CanalPlanAC  If anyone wants to see where we are likely to be. It gets updated with actual position each night.

It turned out the mooring I chose last night was not as good as I hoped for, yes we had a full length pontoon but we also had music until 1 am this morning right beside us. I will not make that mistake again.

This morning I rang the lock keeper to ask about levels, he said it was fine and if we were in the basin he was just locking a Narrowboat out. as we weren't he suggested we wait until 1030 ish. as the Edward Elgar was coming down the river and we wouldn't really want to meet that in the partings, so at 1000hrs we made our way into the basin and tied to the wall and waited for the lock, we were joined by a wide beamed boat and I suggested he went ahead of us as I was sure he would be faster. It wasn't long before The Edward Elgar was coming into the lock, they have to raise the road bridge for her to come in but she is short enough to sit between the top gates and the bridge while the lock fills.

As soon as she was clear the wide beam entered the lock and we followed. The lock keeper told us that the tide would top the weir at about 1130am. so watch out for debris in the river.

We locked out at a steady 3 MPH and maintained that speed most of the way up the partings against the flow, the wide beam was soon out of sight. About a quarter of a mile before the end of the partings our speed dropped to less than 2 MPH and it felt like we were standing still in the flow, we pushed on and at the end of the partings our speed increased to 4½ MPH all without me changing the engine speed and we carried on between 4 and 4½ MPH all the way to The Red Lion at Wainlode Hill where the river flow started to pick up again. We were going to stop at Haw bridge but with a couple of cruisers there already there was no room for us, so we carried on eating lunch on the move. The Avon river use to discharge into the Severn down by the rowing club at Lower Lode as can be seen on this map from Waterway Routes.

The river by now was flowing at its full rate and we were back down to 3½ MPH. As we approached the lock there was very little drop over the weir so not much of a rise in the lock.

The flow seemed much less as we made our way to the cut leading to Tewkesbury and then just passed the lock to moor for the night, this cost us £5 from the Avon River Trust.

Today's Journey

14 Miles 2 Locks in 4¼ hours