Swans Neck River Avon

It was a nice evening yesterday so we had dinner sat out on one of the park benches, about half way through a hire boat came down to moor behind us so we had to move the boat forward by one set of poles, We were moored with a short stern line with a spliced eye dropped over the mooring post, the hire did his knitting over the top, but we expected them to be away before us, they even asked what time we were leaving.
Guess what, this morning we woke to the sound of rain on the roof and we had rain all morning, not heavy rain, just fine , persistent rain that soaks everything. 10 o’clock and with another boat setting the locks to go down we set off to join them, no movement from the hire boat so I undid their knitting, lifted our line off and tied them back up. The boat going down as the same one that overtook us on Tixall Wide earlier in the trip, Richard and his three boys on Unicorn. We didn’t travel far together, he stopped at the beginning of the Pershore visitor moorings and we went to the far end so that Dian could do a bit of shopping while I topped up with water. With that sorted out we went down to Pershore Lock where the hire boat from last night caught us up. After leaving the lock we didn’t see them again until we were setting Nafford Lock. I hate that lock, you turn sharp right off the weirstream and then have to tern immediately sharp left to the lock landing with yet another weir on your right hand side. I don’t know how long this hull has been there but there is a very strong pull to that weir. The lock its self has a swing bridge across the chamber, so even if the top gates are open you cant just motor straight in.

I was told that the Avon carries quite a bit of sewage down to the river Severn and all this foam would seem to confirm that.

We let the hire boat go on ahead as we had to close the bridge before leaving, we had planned only to go as fare as the Swans Neck to moor for the night, if you look at the map you can see why it has that name, the official name is Birlingham Quay, its unusual to find this mooring vacant.

Today’s Journey

7¾ miles 3 locks in 2½ hours