A large obstruction and a rescue

Saturday, 28 May 2011 13:43

We had company in the locks the next morning

Bedwyn Church Lock

Note the leaky gates - a feature of a number of the K and A locks!

An extra hand at the locks from the female crew member of the other narrowboat meant that John was on the tiller and I was able to help a little at the locks for a change. We emerged from Beech Grove Lock, the next lock, to see trouble ahead.

We thought we could see a boat in the bridge hole of New Bridge. The name of the bridge is not very apt as it looks very dilapidated, as you can see!

New Bridge with obstruction

The conical objects are tank traps - another part of the GHQ defence line on the K and A, like the pill boxes.

We had also been accompanied by some canoeists who had to portage their canoes past all the locks. They went to investigate the obstruction ahead of us and found that even they could not get past it!

We all arrive at the bridge

Chris and I walked ahead too - and we all made a plan! The first narrowboat would push the work boat towards the towpath and someone would try to grab the mooring ropes. It appeared that the work boat had come adrift with its stakes attached! Our plan worked - mallets in hand we secured the boat beyond the bridge hole. It would NOT come adrift again as we hammered the stakes in very well.

Mooring the work boat

Rescue accomplished. We thought that it was probably one of the K and A Trust's work boats, but it may have been a BW one. Strangely it had two index numbers!

The fuel boat and motor, Tipton and Scavenger were moored above lock 62. We might just have need of them and wondered if Mr A.L. Jackson would be trading soon.

Tipton and Scavenger

So we arrived at the Crofton flight; it was breezy but sunny. However we had a large heavy shower half way up ......