Macc got us up quite early this morning, so we were ready to leave by about 8.30. The washing machine had been on, and the dryer was drying. It was a nice sunny morning, but with a chilly wind, and the bluebell woods after the next bridge looked lovely.
I’ve always rather liked this house on the way into Stourport. I assume it actually was once a warehouse, rather than just having been made to look like one.
Bridge 7, Mitton Chapel Bridge, is on a bend. Fortunately I was already going quite slowly having just passed the boats moored outside the Bird in Hand pub, and knowing that the bend after the bridge is very sharp. The boat coming the other way had shown no such caution; his bow appeared at speed. I went into full reverse, and was stationary by the time the other boat hit us. He then went whacking into the bank, to the sound of things crashing about in his boat. He then bow thrusted into the side of us and forced his way through the bridge. I expressed the opinion that blind bridges should be approached a bit slower; there were three people on the back, a man with a camera who said “whoops”, a woman who apologised, and the steerer who said nothing and stared straight ahead. They disappeared into the distance, while we tried to get afloat again having been pushed onto the offside. I was not best pleased!
There were quite a few boats moored on the approach to the lock. The Black Star pub always prompts a memory of a very early narrowboat holiday, when we hired from Stourport and did the Stourport Ring. We had dinner in the pub on our final night, before taking the boat back the next morning.
When we got to York Street Lock there were some volunteers there to tidying up and fishing loads of stuff out of the water. One helped Adrian with the paddles. Once we were down we stopped for diesel at Lime Kiln Chandlers: it comes to something when you see the price is £1.40 a litre basic, and think that’s quite good! We took on 129 litres, mostly because the Refleks stove has been on quite a lot still. As we were leaving, the woman from the shop came out to say she’d done the maths wrong and had overcharged us, so once we’d pushed over to the water point and got the hose connected, I walked back to get a partial refund.
The tap took ages to fill the tank, but we could also do the rubbish and recycling while we were there, and I took Macc for a walk down to the river to check out what mooring spaces were down there. Once we were done, Adrian walked round to the staircase locks while I took the boat.
The two staircase pairs are at a ridiculous angle to each other, and I made a bit of a hash of getting from the first into the second, not helped by a stiff breeze blowing the wrong way. I felt a bit better later on when the guy who’d been down before us said it had taken him about ten minutes to make the crossing, which is only about one and a half boat lengths. You can see the odd angle here.
Volunteers had arrived to do some mowing, so one of them did some of the paddles on the bottom locks, then it was out onto the River Severn.
Adrian walked along to the pontoon mooring while I went past on the boat and turned back, so we were facing into the flow. The boat ahead of us was on the end of the pontoon, so we went in the middle.
We went to the Windlass Cafe for lunch, which was good but on the expensive side. Macc came too, and had his lunch on his blanket on the floor. He was pretty well behaved.
We like Stourport, and the area around the former Tontine Hotel (now flats and houses) is really nice.
When we got back to the boat, Macc was rather surprised by a couple of ducks which hopped up onto the pontoon.
This afternoon, I have uploaded and scheduled a podcast and submitted a magazine article. Adrian went to get more wine from Aldi, but only once he was there realised it was actually Lidl. He’s also been preparing for a Trustee meeting this evening. Thanks to the staircase locks, our lock figure for this trip now exceeds the miles for the first (and only) time.
2 miles, 5 locks. (116 miles, 117 locks)