KENNET AND AVON 3

THE DECENT INTO BATH

The sun shone and promised a lovely day as we said our good bye’s to Mr and Mrs of Melvin

Caen Hill Locks

It was a gentle twenty-two miles into Bath, easy down hill all the way. It was glorious day; sung to by birds and saluted by every flower along the way. The deep decent of Caen Hill Locks westwards out of Devizes is a flight of twenty-nine locks, a decent of two hundred and thirty feet, which would take a narrow boat six hours to go through.

Peter talked being under 18 inches of snow

Ten miles from Bath we pulled over for another canal side tearoom experience at Bradford-upon-Avon, a delight place.

Good coffee and a long natter with Peter, the owner of a lovingly restored boat The Grey Hare from Deepcut (on the Basingstoke canal) in Hampshire. He was moored along side. Peter was the lock keeper at Deepcut and took redundancy and invested every penny in The Grey Hare. The lovely boat is his place of residence. He talked of all weathers, being under 18 inches of snow and frozen in and life on the canal. (I subsequently found a picture of The Grey Hare in winter).

THE GREY HARE NARROW BOAT

BRADFORD ON AVON

Between Bradford and Bath the canal cross the railway and the River Avon via two splendid limestone aqueducts Avoncliff and Dundas, both restored to their former glory and looking down on the graceful river.

Now the path is busy with walkers and cyclists to and from Bath.

At lunchtime we pull off Route 4 and into the arms of Bath Spa railway station for our journey home. The traffic was quite a shock after the tranquil towpath; however we had enjoyed some great cycling through Berkshire and Wiltshire on one of the west of England’s loveliest waterways.

Lots of great detail on the canal is on wonderful Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennet_and_Avon_Canal