Back to Bath

We were up early and ready to go by 7.30am, it was cloudy but the wind had dropped and the river looked quite calm.

We soon got to Swineford Lock and then Saltford Lock with no problems, as they were in our favour. We are just loving the River in these parts there is so much wildlife to see. We soon started to get close to Bath and as the Bank Holiday is approaching we thought we would top up with water and have a pumpout. This is a small pontoon, but we managed to squeeze Derwent6 on to it. We then went through the grotty side of the city, every city has one. We then turned starboard and headed back onto the Kennet and Avon and started the tricky accent of the six locks. At the first lock you are met with the wino's, the second lock is the 20 foot deep lock where you can't open the lock gates and at the third only one paddle was working, but after a couple of hours we got to the top! We went through the two tunnels at the top with a building over the tunnel. Underneath there is a hole where items were passed down to the boats going below. We were hoping to get a mooring when we got to the park, but with a Bank Holiday on us...no chance! All the boats were spread out so we couldn't get in. We looked to untie a couple, but they were chained or string had been wrapped round the mooring ropes..Nice! So we had no choice but to move on. However it must have been meant to happen because we found a better mooring with nice views and we could get a good TV signal.. Fate!The sun had come out and we had lunch in the cratch and did some reading, so it was very pleasant. We then had a call in the afternoon to say that Len (Del's Dad) had taken a turn for the worst and would have to have yet another opperation. Poor Dad, he really seems to be going through the wars at the moment........