Last night, after discovering that we couldn’t publish the blog from the boat (the first place ever that we’ve not had a signal), we walked into the very pretty village of Wootton Rivers to see if we could get a better signal. We couldn’t! But we did take a photo (in the gloom of late evening) of the Royal Oak pub and in the front garden was the road sign for the junction – how interesting to live in a place called Clench!
Today, we set off with ‘Tacet’ - like Siamese twins entering and exiting the locks. There’s little to say about the journey as such, except it was beautiful and peaceful. We got to the Bruce Tunnel fairly quickly and, when emerging on the other side ……..
…….. we entered a rather surreal sun dappled glade of trees. (nb Tacet in front)
Looking back towards the Bruce Tunnel – this is it’s best side for photos.
Getting towards Crofton, and now descending from the top pound 450 feet above sea level, we saw smoke coming from the chimney of the pumping station – joy of joys, not every day do you see this! It’s open and pumping this Bank Holiday weekend but we suspect this smoke was from the boilers being warmed up for tomorrow.
We left Ian and Karen to moor up and have a look around the pumping station while we carried on with our journey.
Just outside Hungerford, in the middle of Hungerford Marsh, is the very rare lock with the swing bridge over it. It must be about 23rd in the Wonders of the Canal System!
Doug got over enthusiastic and swung the bridge back before ‘Chance’ was at the bottom of the lock! Never worry – he knows what he’s doing.
It was only a few hundred yards further on and we arrived in Hungerford, where we’re now happily moored outside the church. It’s been a longish day but still very relaxed and enjoyable.
Well done. We retired after Picketlock, moored with a plank to the bank, at 7.45.
ReplyDeleteCrofton was good, although we found out it was steaming this morning as a practise run for the weekend. Bother!