Sunday 28^th July 2019

We awoke thankfully, to find the boat floating again. It is a horrible feeling when she is grounded, leaning at an angle and not moving when you walk around.

We left at 8:30 and moved slowly down the canal, passed loads of tinky boats that again, probably rarely move. The pound was very low.

At Bedwyn Church Lock, as with the mooring, there was so much dog shit around, it was almost impossible not to step in any. Absolute pigs these owners, it takes nothing to throw it in the hedge or bag and bin it.

Beyond the lock, the pound was again, very low. We watered at the service point, dumped rubbish, emptied the loo, did two washes and then negotiated a group of canoes on a learning session.

We passed through a further three locks with the depth of the pounds gradually increasing all the time. The countryside continued to be delightful. Between locks 68 and 69 there were some lovely moorings but with CRT signage requesting boats to leave 5 metres between each other, for a fishing club. Cheek we thought, the canals all said and done, are supposed to be for boats. We later learnt that this angling club bought the fishing rights when the canal was in an abandoned state and, when the canal was being restored, it was written into an agreement that their rights would be observed.

We debated about going into Hungerford but our hearts really weren’t in it today so we looked to moor. Apparently, beyond lock 70, the pound was again low and the banks overgrown, with no chance of mooring. So we reversed off the lock landing and moored in a lovely setting spoilt only by the proximity of the rail track opposite, right beside the canal.

We walked up to the Pelican pub in Froxfield but didn’t go any further. We both felt only like sitting quietly on the boat. On the way back, we found we are sitting right on the border between the counties of Wiltshire and West Berkshire.

We can’t quite put our fingers on what it is we are feeling more and more about the K&A Canal, but it is affecting us and making us feel almost depressed. The scenery is stunning, there are lots of features to be visited, Claverton and Crofton pumping stations, the aqueducts at Dundas and Avoncliffe, the lock flight at Caen Hill. The villages along the way are timeless, lovely and quaint and the towns, interesting. We have really enjoyed the cities of Bristol and Bath. So why the overall negativity towards the canal? It could be the difficulty of finding decent moorings and the continuous lines of tinky boats that never move, which can only get worse, certainly, since the summit, the lack of water has made the going hard. Or perhaps we have just been on the canal too long. Whatever the reason, we will be glad to be off it.

Weather: hot again.   

Day Total: 6 locks; 3 miles; 0 Tunnels; 0 Swing Bridges; 0 Lift Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 4.1

Overall Total: 616 locks; 1107 miles; 49 tunnels; 45 Swing Bridges; 5 Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 699.2hrs