23rd September
Pete now has his little helper back although I'm not much use with these locks. This morning I decided to do the first few for exercise, didn't manage much as the top gates are high to climb and my knees don't like it. The lock beams have a stirrup hung beneath them as a step up, but for shorties like me it still isn't enough and to get down via one is difficult because you can't see where it is when standing on the gate beam! So although the winding mechanisms are easy, the gates are well balanced and easy to open, for me it is necessary to walk the length of the lock to get across by the bottom gates where I don't need to climb. I suppose they were designed for hefty boatmen, not squirts like me with dodgy knees.
Lock 73 was a new experience, a swing bridge across the middle of it, which of course you have to open before you fill the lock, lest the boat gets rammed underneath it!! Once again, I had difficulties 'swinging' it - what a laughable description that is. Pete had to disembark and work it for us. The ground slopes away too so that he ended up stretched up to reach the beam to push it closed! Needless to say this was a particularly slow start to the day.
We were relieved to join another boat and lock through with them. They were a very nice group of three and we got to know a little about their boating life as you do in these situations. Their boat had been their retirement present to each other and they had been out all summer, picking up friends (the third crew member being one) and family along the way, reuniting with people they used to have narrow boat hols with in the 70s. Anyway, we proved to be a pretty good team of 5, even though we say it ourselves and it was a pleasure to meet them.
The canal and it's surroundings get prettier and prettier and even though you are just yards from the railway line, it's a sleepy one and part of the charm. Sunny and still again, chilling off in the evening and we moor in Great Bedwyn, a pretty village which once had a stone masons museum, but now just the carved stones remain displayed outside the post office!! Our locking friends on Merdeka as nearby neighbors.
Pete chatting to the hotel boat crew
Pete now has his little helper back although I'm not much use with these locks. This morning I decided to do the first few for exercise, didn't manage much as the top gates are high to climb and my knees don't like it. The lock beams have a stirrup hung beneath them as a step up, but for shorties like me it still isn't enough and to get down via one is difficult because you can't see where it is when standing on the gate beam! So although the winding mechanisms are easy, the gates are well balanced and easy to open, for me it is necessary to walk the length of the lock to get across by the bottom gates where I don't need to climb. I suppose they were designed for hefty boatmen, not squirts like me with dodgy knees.
Lock 73 was a new experience, a swing bridge across the middle of it, which of course you have to open before you fill the lock, lest the boat gets rammed underneath it!! Once again, I had difficulties 'swinging' it - what a laughable description that is. Pete had to disembark and work it for us. The ground slopes away too so that he ended up stretched up to reach the beam to push it closed! Needless to say this was a particularly slow start to the day.
We were relieved to join another boat and lock through with them. They were a very nice group of three and we got to know a little about their boating life as you do in these situations. Their boat had been their retirement present to each other and they had been out all summer, picking up friends (the third crew member being one) and family along the way, reuniting with people they used to have narrow boat hols with in the 70s. Anyway, we proved to be a pretty good team of 5, even though we say it ourselves and it was a pleasure to meet them.
The canal and it's surroundings get prettier and prettier and even though you are just yards from the railway line, it's a sleepy one and part of the charm. Sunny and still again, chilling off in the evening and we moor in Great Bedwyn, a pretty village which once had a stone masons museum, but now just the carved stones remain displayed outside the post office!! Our locking friends on Merdeka as nearby neighbors.
Location:Great Bedwyn
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