Weir Brake Lock River Avon

Diana wandered into town while I went online and bought our Avon licence for the week, I was surprised to find I could pay with Paypal £55 for 7 days.
Diana returned at quarter to eleven and shortly afterwards a boat came up the lock so it was our cue to leave. The upcoming boat turned out to be the other Harnser, so for about 5 minutes there were two Harnser’s in the basin, we had a few words and made our way down to the river, by which time there was another boat waiting to come up. By the lock a chap was feeding the seagulls with what looked like fish scraps. It could have been the bones from my dinner last night, I had fish.

Once on the river it was across the river and turn left upstream under the two bridges. There are some very smart houses on the river bank and the newer ones are flood proof on stilts, I was rather taken by these statues.

We carried on upstream past the Riverside Venue this set up is huge with loads of mobile homes, glamping pods, 3 bars/restaurants but no visitor moorings .

There is an electric water taxi service that runs back and fort to the town which seemed very busy flying back and forth but there are two unused Waxi’s with outboard engines moored just above the place.

We had planed to go to the head of navigation  but the last winding point is only a short way past here. We winded with a bit of difficulty and needed two attempts, the second time putting the stern into the hollow of the left bank which looks a bit silted and let the flow take the bows round. We then went a short way backwards but as the river narrowed and got shallower the flow speed increased making progress quite slow so we didn’t go far. Looking over the holiday homes we could see this obelisk in the distance on the hill. A bit of Googling shows this to be on the Welcombe Hills and in honour of a Mark Philips.

We headed back down stream stopping opposite the theatre to fill with water, all the river moorings in this section are all now pay for moorings, I feel sure they were free last time we came this way, not sure who or how you pay. Once full of water we headed down to Colin p Whitter lock, although two boats had just come up a third boated  turned the lock before we arrived, they were just about to lock up and a seconded appeared so we opened the gate and let them in, then a third arrived, he didn’t realise there were two boats in the lock and ran up starting to open the near side gate. While all this was going on the restaurant boat full of diners arrived behind us, so I offered to let them go ahead of us. Just as well I did as with all the fruiting around from the boats coming up, by the time we got down the restaurant boat was at the bottom of the lock waiting to come up, it wouldn’t have been much of a lunch cruise if they still hadn’t got down.  Just below the lock is the new Stratford Marina with a capacity for 250 boats all on floating pontoons, this runs right down to the next lock. We carried on down to the lock and moored on the ANT (River Avon Trust) moorings. Since we have been hear the kids have had a whale of a time swimming in the lock, they even helped a hire boat through by closing the gates for them.

 

Today’s Journey

4¾ miles, 2 locks in 3 hours