.....and another full on day to Uppermill

The day started well enough, the sun was shining and we had had no further problems with the pound emptying overnight but I could not wait to get away.

Lock 11, our first of the day posed no problems but lock 12 did.    Despite full wellie I could not get over the bottom cill so Geoff had to let some water down and after a bit of a struggle I was in.

This rural scene belies its surroundings...close by we could hear the wail of police sirens

Progress was even slower than our normal as the canal is very shallow in a lot of places and we are scraping the bottom a lot of the time.

the surrounding countryside is wonderful

I am not completely idle and we do have a routine at locks that involves some action on my part!

After a few more locks I decided it was time for a guest appearance and that we would swap roles......I duly shut lock 17 and walked to set 18 for Geoff.    However this proved to be another cill problem and we ended up changing places again in the lock entrance.  By now we had a CRT work boat behind us so one of them came to help.   Eventually we succeeded and then I limped my way to lock 19 as all was not well with Petroc

Various articles around the prop!!

We had hoped to have a short day and moor somewhere half way to Uppermill but although there were two mooring places marked in our guide they were completely unsuitable and too shallow.

So to the last lock as we approach Uppermill

We had heard that Whit Friday was celebrated here but did not realise it was such a big event.

Whit Friday Brass Bands                     Whit Friday Walks

The two links above tell you all about it and the picture above shows some of the walkers.

We arrived about 2pm, another much longer day than we liked.......

We managed to moor just above the park, but with our stern well out as there is a shallow ledge.

There is a short run of 48 hour mooring behind us and on the other side, but it was full (2 boats) and we had been advised that mooring on the right was better......since we were very hot by the time we arrived we were quite glad of the shade but it is rather gloomy under all these trees.  We were both exhausted by this time so repaired below for a siesta.  

4pm was kicking off time for the bands, all of whom march through the village and then give a performance in the park which is just to our right.    As the day progressed more and more walkers were up and down the towpath.  Most were just in good spirits but there was a lot of alcohol around and more policemen (and policewomen) than I have seen for a while, including mounted police.   They were evident all through the town and riding up and down the towpath ( the evidence of which is scattered all along the towpath!)

As we retired to bed about 11(late for us) there was still a great deal of noise from the park and I did wonder about trouble in the night...........however we both slept soundly and no hint of trouble......must have been the presence of the large number of police......

Total distance:3.81 miles 

Elapsed time:6h6m13s 

Locks:11

Bridges:15 
Average speed:0.62 mph (2.43 lock/mph)