A Visit from Adrian and Crofton in Steam.

Saturday 25th August 2018 at Great Bedwyn.
Early morning and the mist lingered on the water while the rising sun illuminated the pumping station.

After breakfast, we met up with David on "Silent Waters". M was impressed that David had his tea in a proper cup, poured from a teapot and a matching milk jug. Clearly a true gentleman!

The three of us (without Sky this time) walked up to the Pumping Station. By now, the boilers were properly fired up and surrounded by happy volunteers in white overalls, soon to be besmudged with coal dust! The lady was later seen ferrying coal from the pile outside in an ancient wheelbarrow.

Later in the morning, we were joined by Adrian who was interested in this display of half a dozen working old steam engines next to the main boiler.

This clock was rescued from the old timber mill at Honeystreet, where we were moored earlier this week, and restored by the volunteers. It is apparently very difficult to maintain as it was built largely from scrap agricultural bits. It once caused havoc by chiming 50 at mid-day!

The two massive beam engines are incredibly impressive not least because they are almost silent in operation.

R, M and Adrian spent a long time looking at the two engines and talking to the volunteers.

The engines were installed to lift water 40ft from the large "Wilton Water"reservoir on the other side of the canal up to a "leat" or stream that carries the water to the summit pound of the canal a mile away. Each engine is still capable of lifting a ton of water up every six seconds!

We had lunch in the picnic area outside in the sunshine. In the tent on the left, Tesco was providing watermelon and fruit in return for a donation to the pumping station funds.

After lunch, we walked with Adrian, David and Sky to Wilton Windmill, which still operates at Bank Holidays - only to find that it was closed and only operates on Sunday and Monday.

Adrian had to go home at this point, so we walked him back to his car.
We returned to find "Silent Waters" and MM firmly aground and listing badly.

Many boats had come up through the locks from the east for the steaming weekend, but very few from the west. So, lockfulls of water had dropped the water level by nearly a foot. The solution was to go to the uphill locks and let two lockfulls of water down into our pound to re-float the boats so we could set off together to the east. We were helped through the first lock by Girl Guides from the same pair of boats that we had met on the River Avon. They were clearly enjoying themselves.

M walked ahead to set the next lock and found it to be towpath walking at its finest on such a lovely evening.

"Report leaking gates to the C&RT", we are told. We would have to report almost every lock! One lock had a broken paddle with a notice saying not to use it - the notice was dated the 16th July! We can't help feeling that maintaining locks should have been a greater priority for C&RT than the recent costly re-branding exercise.

We knew that there were nice moorings at Great Bedwyn but, as they are popular, we were not confident of finding space. Yet to our pleasant surprise, there was ample space for both boats.
After we moored up David joined us on MM for a glass or two of wine. Naturally, Sky came too and, having inspected the inside of MM, sat on guard on the stern deck.

We had travelled to Great bedwyn this evening because the forecast is for heavy rain most of tomorrow - so we probably will not go anywhere tomorrow but stay in the warm inside MM.
Today: 2 miles, 4 locks and 3.5 hours.
Trip: 222 miles, 131 locks and 153.6 hours.