Oakhill Down Bridge Wed 23 April 2014

Last night was not the quietest of moorings so close to Kintbury railway station with a steady stream of freight trains going through all night and I don’t expect tonight to be any better. The railway follows the Kennet and Avon quite closely, sometimes very closely.

We set of at 0940hrs and not a bad morning, Just through the first bridge and the canal widens dramatically, there is a 72ft winding hole along here, but other than the sign you wouldn’t know where it is. This gives a lovely setting to Kintbury Vicarage which sits up on the left hand bank overlooking this wide expanse of water. As I waited while Diana set

Dun Mill lock where we waited while a pair of cruisers came down together, one towing the other, the sky was full of Swallows. The are the black dots on the photo. There use to be water cress beds above the mill, but these have now been converted into a trout fishery.

As we approached Hungerford we passed under Station Rd Bridge, moored just before it was “Shell Fen” an old Shell oil tanker that was used to deliver oil around the Fens, we last saw her moored at Tadpole Bridge on the Thames.

We moored in Hungerford on the 24hr moorings below the lock and went for a wander round town.  It was market day but there was no fresh vegetables for sale.

After lunch we were on our way again. The second lock we came to, Hungerford Marsh Lock has a swing bridge across the lock chamber, I wonder how many people forget to swing the bridge before filling the lock. These manual swing bridges are locked closed by a chain, one end attached to the lock approach ramp and the other to a a large bolt . The bolt screws into the end of the swing bridge to prevent it being opened. This is no ordinary bolt, its about 30mm in diameter with a square head which fits a lock windlass, so you need a windlass or large spanner to release it provided the previous boater tightened it up, some are only finger tight. A few years back a girl lost her legs playing with a bridge where, her and her friends had managed to remove the bolt without using any tools and were able to swing it open and closed.

The next lock, Cobblers Lock has a house standing beside it and there is actually another floor below what you can see in the photo, if the lock is left full water seeps into this lower floor causing flooding. The house is now empty and there is an auction sign laying in the garden, but like so often happens with these isolated properties, it they are left empty they get vandalised.

Some one has had a field day cutting the hedge along the towpath, I don’t know if it will recover. Hedges like everything else require regular maintenance to keep them in good order. You often see where a lot of money and effort is put into layering a hedge and then its not maintained.

By now the weather was getting a bit drizzly and nowhere near as nice as earlier so we started to look for somewhere to moor for the night. We saw a gap just big enough for us in the pound below  Oakhill Down Lock. CaRT are doing a lot of work here along the off side edging it with the coir rolls that have places in them to plant reads etc. These reeds come in plug pots and are transplanted into the small pots set in the rolls, they then seem to just leave the plastic trays on the mud. Maybe I am being unfair and they will collect them later?

There is absolutely no 3 signal here at all so I am not sure when I will be able to post this or update the map.

 

Today’s Map

Kintbury Tuesday 22 April 2014

Well we had another 6mm of rain according to my gauge last night, so that is 16mm in two days. Its nor surprising the Thames is back on yellow boards.

First job this morning was a walk into town for a bit of shopping. Following the mandatory Tesco visit I picked up 5lt of Classic Engine Oil at Wilco’s for £16 a can.

We finally set off at 1045Am in overcast and slightly drizzly weather to leave these rather nice 24Hr visitor moorings.

At the first lock we came to a gent with a dog opened the offside gate as Diana opened the near side one, once in the lock he closed it again, I put this down to being a helpful dog walker. What happened next surprised me, he walked to the top of the lock and took his adjustable spanner out of his pocket and proceeded to slowly raise the paddle. As I left the lock I raised the point with him, to which he told me he was the “Bailiff” for this stretch. Further questioning brought forth he was the fishing bailiff.

The next lock was supposed to be  empty with.the bottom paddle up. It wasn't, the paddle was down and the lock quarter full. Diana drew the paddle and it was quickly obvious there was a problem, water was spewing in under the top gate so she wound the paddle down again. At this point the chap of a boat moored further down turned up, demanding that we draw the paddle or the pond below, all quarter mile of it would drain through the leaking gates at the next lock and he would be on the bottom, all within half an hour. I let him rant a bit, raised the paddle and he quietened down. The pond above the lock was nothing but a muddy ditch as it had all leaked through the top gate and left via the raised paddle overnight. Once he had calmed down we found out CaRT had been informed and that there was a branch jammed in the top gate. I suggest that as there were now 3 of us if we refilled the lock we may be able to open the gate and remove the obstruction, which with a bit of fiddling with a pole I did with ease. By now it was obvious that the pound was rising, so we turned the lock with the top gates sealing and worked our way through. Our new friend was by now full of apologies for his earlier attitude. I think when he said that I had not been boating long and Diana mumbled something about 30 years which he may of heard could have had something to do with it.
We crept slowly up the centre of a slowly filling channel expecting to find CaRT at the next lock letting water down. What we did find was another boater letting water down so he could get down himself and he had been at it for 2 hrs. Just as he cleared the lock a CaRT chap turned up, so I explained what had happened and left him to drop another half meter of water down.

We continued upstream meeting a few boats on the way as far as Kintbury. Here we found not one but two boats moored on the lock landing. Once through the lock we filled with water at a rather slow water-point when it started to rain properly, just above the water-point there is a long length of visitor mooring and about half of them were vacant, so just before 3PM we slipped into one of them for the night, the only problem is that it is VERY close to the railway line.

Today’s Map

An information update

On Wednesday the 16 Aprils Blog at Oxford, (LINK) I posted a photograph of the old building we were moored opposite. Following that I received the following information from Dave Dobbin about the history of the building. 

 

FROM Dave Dobbin

This is the Old Osney Power Station, built in 1892. It was Oxford's first electrical power plant, open until 1968. As it would have been prestigious for the town, it's no wonder it was made as ornate as possible to show how well Oxford could 'do' industrial building for, what was then, the most modern form of lighting, etc.
It was acquired by Oxford University in 1971 and turned into a research laboratory for the Department of Engineering Science, where researchers performed cutting-edge experimentation in hypersonics and turbo-machinery until 2010, when the department outgrew the ageing facility and moved into a more modern building.
Someone has tried to get a definitive answer from the University about their plans for the building as he had thought it would be ideal to convert into housing accommodation, but the Registrar seemed very evasive about what they would do with this otherwise empty building, merely stating it ' is in functional use by departments of the University' and they had 'no current plan for the sale or redevelopment of the Old Power Station site'. Over the last couple of years it has been used for an art exhibition.

Newbury Monday 21 April 2014

When I woke up this morning it was thick fog  so I put the kettle on the hob and went back to bed, it was only 5-30AM I found out later.

Yesterday we had 10mm of rain in as many hours, but today the sun was back and with a light wind it was quite warm. We were away at 9-30 and met 4 boats quite early on in the trip. The first lock we came to was Old Heale’s lock which as you can see is quite deep.

We have had several manual, ie. you have to push them, swing bridges to do today but they all seemed well maintained and easy to operated.

We encountered another Turf Sided lock today, Monkey Mash. As we approached a chap with a windlass opened the bottom gat for us, so I went straight in, this meant Diana had to climb the Ladder and cross the walkway to reach terra firma. The chap with the windlass didn’t have a boat, he just lived locally and enjoyed working locks. While we were in the lock I spotted a pair of Robbins darting about with beaks full of worms to feed their young. Eventually they plucked up courage to return to the nest in the side of the lock.
The lock looks much different when its full and the banks covered with water.

As we approached Widmead Lock I could see the by wash flow shooting out from the left so we made a some what heavy lading as we came alongside the lock moorings on the right.

Above Ham Mash Lock the long term moorings presented a nice reflection on the sill waters above, but the place I fancied was just down the weir stream.

Along side Greenham Lock is Newbury Dry Dock, we had to wait for a boat to lock down and the weir stream enters from the left sweeping boats to the lock landing on the right. I knew there wouldn’t be room for him to pick his crew up with me there so I waited half way through the bridge into the yard entrance.Last time we were this way the moorings beside Victoria Park were day time only, they are now 48 hr with mooring rings and like all the recognised visitor moorings were empty when we arrived. We moored there for a few hours while we went for a meal with my Son and his young lady at The Hogs Head where we sat on the riverside terrace. The boat coming down had rather an encounter with the bank side vegetation as its on the outside of the bend and the river flow takes you over to the right, it is not helped by the sign telling you to keep to the right where as you really need to try to hold centre as much as possible. Just beyond here is Newbury bridge, probably the narrowest point on the river so the place where the water flow is greatest, the effect it had on our speed travelling against it was quite marked.
The water enters from both sides between the bridge and the lock, The strongest flow comes in under the wooden footbridge under the towpath, the other comes down beside the lock. There is a lock landing just below the lock mouth and above the weir stream exit, last time we came down here this landing was closed and you had to try and stop below the bridge to pick your crew up. 

Above Newbury Lock there is another swing bridge, this is half mechanised and half manual. The barriers are lowered using the hydraulic winding gear that is used on the locks using a windlass, then the bridge is swung using powered hydraulics that are controlled from the green locked panel by the bridge. The bridge only goes to a small island with some houses on it, but there were two cars waiting by the time Diana had operated it.

The is a short length of 24 hr visitor mooring a short way above the bridge and as it had just turned 5PM we decided to stop there for the night.  This was a good move because within half an hour it was raining again.

This is the map of today’s journey.

Woolhampton (still) Sunday 20 April 2014

The last canoe we heard go by was just after midnight last night, there may have been more I don’t but I do sleep better after a glass of Port. Diner was taken at The Rowbarge and it was a good job I called in and booked a table. The service was great with friendly staff, even if they were very busy. Why do places use that as an excuse for poor service, don’t they expect to be busy?

This morning was very gloomy until it started to rain, that’s when the sun came out and it started to thunder. We hadn’t planned to move until after lunch as we enjoyed it so much we book a table for Sunday lunch with friends again at The Rowbarge.

When we left the pub we watched two hire boats negotiate the swing bridge going down stream, the first grazed the fenders but the both failed to manage to stop to pick up their crew below the bridge and they were last seen walking down after the boats in the rain.

The weather was so miserable this afternoon that we decided to stay put for the rest of the day. Its the first time that we have ever done that.

Woolhampton Saturday 19 April 2014

It was 9-30 before we set off this morning. As you can see there is a lot of rubbish on the weir for CaRT to remove.

The first lock of the day was Garston Lock, a Turf sided lock that we had to leave empty when we departed.

What we didn’t realise was that today is the second day of the Devizes to Westminster Canoe race, details on this link http://www.dwrace.org.uk/. The good two man teams do it in one none stop run, but the others do it over 4 days and we met the first of them just before Garston Lock, Portage at the lock was not easy with the handrail on the steps and the pillar box. The Sea Scouts were taking advantage or the event with a refreshment tent for the supporters and followers at Sheffield lock and our arrival coincided with a bunch of canoes. We continued meeting the canoes  for some little time but then they seemed to dry up and we didn’t meet any more after Towney Lock.

There is an old mill that looks to be under restoration beside the river, I thing it is Shenfield Mill. but I will check on the way back.We only had one manually operated swing bridge today, the rest have all been on the press of a button.

Some of the locks can be a bit sharp filling with only gate paddles to let the water in, but by being right at the back I was clear of the turbulence and could sit nicely against the side without bashing about.

As we couldn’t find an easy spot for lunch we just sat in Padworth Lock and ate it, from here we could see Aldermaston lift bridge and lock so we would have good warning of anyone coming down. We couldn’t sit on the lock moorings as they are being used to store hire boats. When we arrived at Aldermaston lift bridge a boat was coming down the locks so we waited until he exited the lock before opening the bridge and passed between the bridge and the lock. We carried on to Woolhampton, checking the lock was ready before operating the swing bridge, there is a good flow coming in from the left just before the lock so i know why this boat has so many fenders down. And this was just one of the canoes racing down stream. We have moored for the night on the 48 hr visitor moorings just above the lock, it will be noisy so close to the railway but it runs close to the river all the way up this section.
Since we have been here there has been a continuous stream of canoeists coming down. These are the ones who left Devizes this morning and are doing the full 125 miles and 77 portages in one go.

 

I thought I would try adding a trace of our route for the day to the bottom of each blog

 

http://www.dwrace.org.uk/

Burghfield Mill Friday 18 April 2014

Made a start about five to nine just after another Narrowboat went by, we were able to catch them at the lock and go down together. The replacement at Whitchurch bridge is a long way behind schedule as they couldn’t get on site for 3 months due to the water levels and a chalked notice says that the river will be closed for a few days next month. The old bridge deck has been removed but the support columns are still there. The have erected a temporary bridge just upstream from where the old one was. There was no work going on today, but it is Good Friday. 
The boat we were sharing with pulled in and moored on Pangborne Meadow leaving us to travel alone again. We have seen several goslings since we have been on the Thames, but they have all been from Egyptian Geese.

We did however see one Canada Goose sitting on her nest, the youngsters will be in for a surprise when they hatch out and have to jump 15 feet into the water. I bet the owner of the boat house is not too impressed either. 

Turning into the Kennet came as bit of a surprise, the flow coming out stopped us dead, I was not expecting that much flow. We met a boater at Blake’s lock who was able to give us some information about river flows further up. We met 3 boats above the lock before we reached the traffic lights that control the one way traffic flow through Reading town centre. Diana pressed the button on the “Pedestrian Crossing” panel that they have used to trigger the light and we got a green straight away. This gives us 12 minutes to reach County Lock before someone can be given passage from that end. With the speed of flow against us it probably took us 8. It would be nice to do it slowly and relaxed so that you could look round as you passed through.

As we approached County Lock there were two boats in the lock coming down, so I hung a long way back knowing that the flow would sweep them to my side. Once they were ready to Leave Diana requested the green light for them but they still had to wait about a minute until our journey had timed out. First out was the ex working boat followed by a private modern boat. I bet it didn’t take them 8 minutes to reach the other end.

It was fairly obvious by now that this travelling over the next few days is going to be quite slow and we met another 3 boats coming down in Fobney Lock. Chatting to them they were escaping from the K&A after being at Burghfield Island boat club since September. As they left the lock they had problems picking up their crews, even though they were on our tug deck due to the amount of flow from the Water Works discharge under the lock landing. We met another 4 boats after this until we decided to moor for the night at Burghfield Mill between Burghfield Lock and the weir.
Just by where we are moored I think it is very luck that there was not a breach following this wash out of the towpath.