Tuesday 2nd August 2005
Stratford-upon-Avon - Kingswood Junction (13 miles, 35 locks)
We wanted to avoid the rush out of Stratford, so we were up at 5:30am and slipped away quietly just before 6am. There wasn't a tourist in sight at the river lock into Bancroft Basin, compared to the heaving throng when we had passed down to the river two days earlier.
We stopped at Wilmcote and Jen cooked breakfast as a few boats passed on their way down to Stratford, including Hyderanger with the New Zealand couple who had decided to visit after we had told them how pleasant it was on the river.
We stopped again briefly at Wooton Wawen to buy food from the farm shop and then carried on towards Lowsonford. The plan was to have a picnic lunch while filling up the water tank, which would have been quite low after our two days in Stratford. However, there were more boats about now, some with inexperienced crews, so progress was slow and we ate on the move.
When we got to Lowsonford, there was a boat on the lock moorings waiting to go up and a Stratford Court timeshare boat moored on the waterpoint. It was all locked up so they had obviously gone off to the pub for lunch, probably oblivious to their selfish behaviour. We got our nose into the bank and started filling up, and then blocked the lock mooring when that became free. Fortunately, no other boats came, apart from a plastic cruiser who said some unkind things about Stratford Court. Most of their boats look so shabby, and are obviously end-of-life Black Prince hire boats that have been bought on the cheap and not even repainted. To be fair, they seem to have a few newer boats in bright green livery with a garish logo and Cascadas in huge letters on the sides (this is apparently the name of the company behind Stratford Court).
The last few locks to Kingswood seemed to take for ever, then we had to wait below the last lock while the Stratford Court boat in front of us went up through the lock so they could wind and come straight back down. There is a huge space to turn at the junction and a combination of skill and planning allowed them to wind the boat in a mere fifteen or twenty minutes (or so it felt). At one point, I wondered if they were having a laugh and had gone on ahead without telling us.
There was a gap of about six inches between our boat and the bank. Jen announced that she was going to walk on ahead and find a good place to moor. One minute she was standing on the gunwales and then suddenly she disappeared from view, landing with one knee on the concrete side and the other leg in the canal. She was pretty shaken but okay apart from bruising and a grazed knee. I showed my sympathy by saying that everyone needs to fall in at some stage to stop them getting complacent (I've already been there.... ).
After the lock, we made the sharp right turn down the link between the Stratford and Grand Union and then turned right again to moor a short distance from the junction.
On previous visits to Kingswood, we had always moored on the North Stratford at Lapworth Wharf and never been aware of noise from the railway. On this occasion, the railway was very close, but the trains stopped running quite early, so we knew we would have a peaceful night.
We walked up to "The Navigation" for good food and excellent beer, thus demolishing my theory that you should never visit the same place twice.
In the middle of the night, we were woken by whispered voices and strange mechanical noises. Although there were no trains, the track repair gangs were out using a machine that sounded a cross between a pneumatic drill and cheese-grater. Never mind, it only lasted about half an hour and we could recover our lost sleep by having a lie-in, disturbed only by the early morning train services....