Water Falling from the Sky and an Inconsiderate Idiot in a Cruiser.

Friday 13th July 2018 in Gloucester.
The lock from the Avon down to the River Severn in Tewkesbury opens at 8:00am and is manned by the keeper, who lives in the cottage beside the lock. It was a bit later than that when we reversed up to the lock to go through it.

The lock keeper kept us in the lock with the bottom gates open as the "Edward Elgar" trip boat passed by to go to its moorings next to the lock.

However, having made a reasonably early start, the lock keeper advised us to wait on the lock moorings below until 12:00 as there was a spring tide and it was bringing all kinds of debris with it into the approach to Gloucester lock and it would be safer to wait until then.

Finally, just after mid-day, we rejoined the mighty Severn and continued our progress southwards.

Upper Lode lock is only half a mile from Tewkesbury and it is HUGE! In August 2014, this was our 1,000 lock going north. Today, it was our 2,270th lock.

Its gates are massive and the lower half is wide enough for us to have turned around in it.

The sun was fierce and there is no shade on the stern of the boat, so M used her brolly as a parasol.

As we approached Gloucester, dark clouds rolled in and suddenly the parasol became an umbrella again as the rain sheeted down. The first rain that we have had since we left Aston Marina.

R sheltered under our big Eddie Stobart umbrella as he steered MM.

Before you get to the large lock that takes you up into Gloucester Basin, you have to call ahead. Hopefully then the lock will be ready for you when you arrive. The channel leading up to the lock is narrow and the river was running fast; we had a red light, so we had to grab on to the chains that hang down from the wall and moor to them to wait for the lock to open. As predicted, there was a lot of debris in the water including some large tree trunks.
We waited for about half an hour in the pouring rain until finally the gates opened and two cruisers came out. By this time there were two more narrowboats waiting behind us.

The first cruiser accelerated out of the lock and by the time he got to us he was producing a strong wash that banged us against the wall. The two boats behind us started to wave to him to slow down and we clearly heard his engines note rise as he went even faster!! Needless to say, the language from behind was appropriate and forthright. Idiot!
Once finally through the lock, we moored up in the basin. It is one of the most attractive moorings we've been in and it has retained much of its old atmosphere; most of the old warehouses are still there beautifully restored and with a new lease of life.

There was a pretty, if rather stormy, sky at sunset.

Today: 14 miles, 3 locks and 4.5 hours.
Trip: 114 miles,61 hours and 59.5 hours.