We're on a new canal for us again! What fun. We're on the Stratford upon Avon Canal, entered at its midsection at Kingswood Junction. It was so quaint and beautiful. A small link canal from the Grand Union took us to the narrow locks of this canal opened in the late 1790s with much fundraising. As soon as we entered, we had locks as immediate welcome! 19 of them took us up to beautiful landscape.
And - we were on a roll. We followed our wide lock plan of when Bella is in the lower lock as it is filling, the lock worker goes up and gets the next one up ready. But these narrow locks have an annoying feature - there are two gates to open on the way in the bottom lock. On wide locks, there are two gates, but we only have to open one of them, so the lock worker only really has to operate one side of a lock, not both. Not so on these narrows. SO (!) we have created a new routine, including Bella in lock operation. Lock worker opens one gate, Bella gently nudges open the other gate. Lock worker closes one gate, the driver points the tiller into the corner behind the open gate, puts the throttle ahead hard and sends water into the corner behind the still open gate. Hey presto, gate closes! One side worked, not two :-) Then Bella gently pushes forward against the upper gate, driver steps off and both Pete and Elizabeth work the paddles. When Bella is ready, she gently nudges open the upper gate (single), lock worker waits to close the gate and driver steps onboard Bella while she continues out the lock to the next one (now empty thanks to the lock worker making it ready). Ah. We love this.
However, the Stratford canal is very shallow, making us think we had weeds around the propeller, Bella was going so slowly. So we stopped TWICE to check. Poor Pete the weed hatch handler - pics above. A fun moment was using a draw bridge - we've never done that before! Pic above.
We stopped just before Bridge 19 and moored up by a read cider pub. Oh well. Someone must! It was a great welcome to a wonderful autumn day and a new canal. Tomorrow we're off to Brum.
