Bartimaeus

Before we got out of bed this morning we heard a tinkling sound.  This was the crew of the work boat Eric undoing their rope.  Their engine started soon after and the boat drove away.  While we were having breakfast the boat had pushed the barge in to the lock and the crew were using their machinery to empty the  load on to the lock side.  They had a large mixed load of branches and tree trunks, presumably fished out of weirs, locks etc. 

Once emptied, they set off up the river, presumably to collect another load.  Meanwhile another pair of workers had started lifting the detritus off the lock side and in to their lorry.  Once the lorry was full it was driven off, leaving a large pile behind and a worker with a chainsaw.

We took advantage of the reduced activity to drive in to the lock ourselves.  The man with the chainsaw switched to using his phone as we approached, so we were able to operate the lock in peace.

It was a tight squeeze, with large yellow signs on both lock gates saying to keep back from them.  It was all going fairly smoothly until I suddenly felt the tiller push firmly to one side.  I initially worried we might be snagged on something, but it turned out to be a strong current.  One of the top paddles must have been slightly open, so there was a strong jet of water which the rudder had just descended in to.  I asked Clare to try to lower that paddle, which fixed the problem - and probably made opening the gate easier too.

Before we had got out of the lock, Eric had returned, and one of the crew came to help - he wanted the lock filled again once we were out.   He was very friendly and apologised for having woken us earlier.  They weren't as noisy as the geese who are in great abundance on this section of the river.  There even seemed to be a goose motif in the sky.

This lower section of the River Avon was wide and slow.  As well as the geese we got several sightings of kingfishers, though never very close.  Once the batteries were fully charged, I switched to electric drive and pulled back the throttle.  It was pleasantly warm in the sunshine, but the October sun was not quite enough to allow us to drive entirely on solar power.

As we approached the M5 bridge, we saw a recovery vehicle in attendance on the hard shoulder above us.  The recovery driver came back to his vehicle as we approached and then walked on to be above us as we went under.  He asked where we were heading and then added "I live on a boat too".

A little further on was a riverside pub at Twining (other riverside pubs are available).  It seemed a shame to drift on by when it was already lunchtime and they had easy moorings outside.  We had an excellent lunch on their upper terrace looking out over the river and the flood plain towards Great Bredon.

After lunch we continued our slow drift towards Tewkesbury.  The afternoon felt like a pleasant summer day, quite different from the stormy conditions a few days ago.  Before we reached the town, we called in at the marina to get our waste tank emptied, and then went looking for the visitor moorings.

We first had to negotiate King John's Bridge.  The bridge has an obvious high navigation arch, but the arch is at an angle to the river.  In the gentle conditions this posed no difficulty.  A sign on the other side of the bridge advises boats coming the other way to give a 4 second blast of the horn.  There was no sign for me, and fortunately no other boats moving.

We found the visitor moorings just after the lock down to the Old Avon which leads to the River Severn, and turned to face upstream and moor.  We went in to town for a quick look round and to buy milk - the only thing we were running low on.

Before dinner we went for a short walk on the Severn Ham.  This is an island bounded by the River Severn and the Old Avon on one side, and the Mill Avon on the other.  We were able to look across the River Severn at the weir next to Upper Lode Lock.  The flow on the Severn is considerably greater than anything we have seen on the Avon.  It doesn't look problematic for us, but we hope the flow will diminish in the next few days.

We crossed over the Ham to the sluice that is the limit of navigation on the Avon.  The building next to it is Abbey Mill, in use until 1920 - it looks as if it is now housing.  There had been a mill on this site since 1190 when the monks of the nearby Abbey had a channel dug - the Mill Avon.