Harnser's Travels: Wiggin Hill Bridge Tuesday 29 October 2019

Tuesday, 29 October 2019

Wiggin Hill Bridge Tuesday 29 October 2019

Day : Tuesday
Date : 29 October 2019
Start : 1115
Finish : 1545 Cuttle Bridge inn

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Looked out of the side hatch this morning and the grass was white but the sun soon got shot of that. One job to take care of before we set off was to change the LEDs in one of the galley lights, I converted them all to LED last trip but didn't have enough cool white LEDs so fitted a couple of warm white ones and they didn't look right with the others.

We set off at 1115hrs heading straight up the Curdworth locks, you can see how blue the sky was from this shot across the lakes.

Things didn't go quite right at the second lock. We have a system for doing flights, Diana set the lock and I bring the boat in, she shuts up and we both draw the top paddles, she then wanders off to set the next lock ready, while I finish this one, bring the boat out and close up. The last bit was the problem, I shopped the boat in the mouth of the lock, closed the lock but the boat just drifted out of reach, all I could do was stand and look. As you can see from this photo before I left the lock there wasn't a breath of wind. At one point it was very slowly heading for the towpath but then started to go the other way. The only thing I could do was draw the paddles on the lock, luckily the flow made the stern swing towards the towpath and I was just able to leap back aboard. When I got to the next lock Diana wanted to know what had taken me so long. It was here that we met a boat coming down, this helped but even so the locks still needed draining when we arrived. We met another boat at lock 4, Diana saw him coming so raised a paddle for him and waved that we were coming up, he still closed up lock 3 when he left. We stopped at the top of the flight for lunch when several more boats came by heading down the flight. The bump on the offside wall at the exit to Curdworth Tunnel is getting smaller, slowly being carved away by the handrails of boats. We stopped just clear of the tunnel so that Diana could go to the post office store, as we had just about run out of tea bags. Once back onboard we headed to the Cuttle Bridge Inn, I am not sure why they decided to rename it that. Looking out of the bow doors the sun as going down behind Wiggins Hill Bridge, I wonder if they will rename it Cuttle Bridge in years to come.