Congratulations "Curiosity"

Monday 6th August, 2012 in Bradford on Avon.
A bright morning, with the early morning sunshine driving away the mist.

After breakfast, we walked up to the Town Lock to reconnoitre canal traffic and moorings, as we wanted to find a 48 hour mooring for the next two nights. There were moorings free and the lock was in our favour, so R ran back to get MM while M opened the lock gates. Well, she tried, but the gate was very stiff so she couldn't budge it! Luckily, there were plently of good-natured onlookers to help her.

We were very pleased to see that Andy and Janine on nb "Scavenger" were moored up above the lock, so we took the opportunity to top up with diesel from them.

The early morning news brought tidings of "Curiosity's" safe landing on Mars. We were delighted, as we had known about its mission from our visit to NASA in Houston last January. Other news, from the Canal & River Trust, was that the Bath flight of six locks was closed for a week due to a gate problem and the Avon was closed to navigation due to heavy rainfall. It seems that we made the right decision not to go on to Bristol, as we would have been stuck down there until all the problems were resolved!
Kingsground was due to come today to do a 300-hour service on MM, but they phoned to say that they had a problem with their van, so they will come tomorrow.
We set off to explore Bradford on Avon, as we hadn't seen much of the town itself on the way down. It really is a little gem. It has charm and history from its previous weaving industry, and no big shops or chain restaurants!

An old Mill, beautifully converted to Apartments.

Back on MM, R set to washing down the roof of MM as it hadn't been done for a couple of weeks and with all the recent rain it was very mucky, requiring much elbow grease and scrubbing. M polished some of the brasswork. R's patent cleaner had worked well but the "acid" rain had spotted all the brass again.
Today: 0 miles, 1 lock and 1.9 hours.
Trip: 191 miles, 161 locks and 157.2 hours (307.2 total).