Evesham River Avon.

This morning at 9-30 the small boat ahead of us started their engine  so we rushed about a bit and joined them in the lock, going all the way to Evesham. This is the third time  24 hours we have done this lock.
Bidford bridge is a classic example of not choosing the largest bridge arch, you will see the arrows to the left hand side.

We kept hearing a noise like a motorbike being hammered down the A46 but I think these were the culprits, he came over towing one a few times but often disappeared into the cloud. We were well down stream before I manage to get a photo.

There use to be several more locks on the river than there are now, this is the remains of one of them between IWA and Harvington Lock.

This struck me as a strange place to park a car, I am not sure how far it is to the nearest road.

Some of the weirs along the river are quite long, others are down a weir stream, but this one and Evesham are on the edge of the navigation.

There has to be a story behind this tower by the George Billington Lock, there is a lot of work gone into it.

Although these locks are quite large the paddles are easy because they have a counter weight on a chain, that and the winding mechanism is similar to some of the older French waterways, I wonder where they came from.

Down above Evesham Marina we met this team training for a raft race somewhere and they were certainly giving it their all changing side every four strokes, they were actually on the wrong side of the river but had a really nice rhythm going.

Just after this there was a long run of new moorings, we wondered if they were new visitor moorings but just under the bridge is Evesham Marina so I guess they belong to them.

Evesham Lock is horrible, you have to lay alongside a walkway across the weir and we are low enough to slide under the walkway and catch the cabin side paint on it. So the weir is trying to pull you under the walkway the the turbine the other side of the lock is trying to drag you past the lock mouth which is at quite an angle, not nice at all and now its raining so I cant touch it up. This lock is the boundary between the upper and lower Avon, down below the river is wide and here at least slower. Once under the bridge we pulled in for water. I hope this notice is just to cover themselves as we drink the water from our boat tank.

Once full we dropped back downstream away from the bridge to moor for the night just getting sorted as the dinosaurs set off and the rain started.

 

  Today’s Journey     9 miles 5 locks in 3½ hours