Back to sanity!

Wednesday, 02 December 2009 18:16

Warning - this is a serious blog about our travels - read at your peril!

If you are not a regular reader you will need to read the two (first and second) previous blogs to understand the titles!

Talking sanity, are the weather forecasters sane? The forecast for this area was rain, rain and more rain. We have not seen even a spot of rain today! We even got going a little earlier to beat the rain!

The Bratch Locks are an experience not to missed and I did take a lot of photos! They are all in an album if you would like to experience our experience! To whet your appetite here are a few. (cf. The weather didn't wet our appetite! ed.)

Approaching The Bratch top lock

For those who do not know anything about The Bratch - a quick résumé follows. Although at first glance they look like a staircase of three locks - they are not. The Bratch is a flight of locks. This is because there are "pounds" between the locks. These "pounds" are only about 4 foot in length, not big enough for a narrowboat

Because of their construction there is a strict method of operation and you disobey the BW instructions at you peril.

Bratch instructions

The rule to remember all the way down is "blue before red", not forgetting to close paddles behind you of course.

This shows the paddles in the middle and bottom locks

In the above photo you can just see the "pound" between the bottom gates and the top gates of the next lock. There are other idiosyncrasies here too: from the toll house to the lock bridges, the side pound to the blocked off steps at the bottom of the flight.

Epiphany in Bratch middle lock

Upper Bratch Bridge (48) over middle lock

Side pound at Middle lock - wide if not long!

Steps to nowhere under Bratch Bridge (47)

The locks are very well maintained, apart from some leaky bottom gates and in the warmer weather are a mecca for gongoozlers. There was not a soul around today though.

We left the Bratch Locks behind us. Once again we had thoroughly enjoyed our journey down them. It is worth taking the time and not rushing them as there is so much to see.

Leaving the Bratch

Ah! But wait there was another interesting bit to come!