Things changed a bit last night and more and more boats arrived at the floating pontoon as a boat party had been organised for the weekend.  They were a lovely crowd and invited us to stay for the party.  We politely declined as we wanted to make at least a little progress tomorrow.

While those on boats were pretty quiet the same could not be said of the bridge jumpers who continued to play loud music and make lots of noise until the early morning.

We slipped away at 8 am again to beat the crowd to the moorings between locks 10 and 11 in Bath.  There were some really lovely stretches along the river and we were all on our own again for some time.  We were lucky enough to spot a Kingfisher too.  Then we met lots of boat club members all out for their training runs in sculling.  The ones broadside on as we approached Weston lock caused some concern!

Some of the gates were very heavy so Romy did most of the lock entries, all but one in fact.  She was even brave enough to tackle the Bath Deep Lock.  It was very pleasant enjoying the scene at Thimble Mill Basin but the knowledge of having to tackle the Deep Lock next was not so pleasant.

We arrived at our destination at around 13:30.  Once everything was sorted out Peter had a rest as he was cream crackered in spite of getting some assistance with the gates at the Deep Lock.  Oliver’s thermometer was reading 31 but climbed to 43 later on in the afternoon.

By the evening there were seven boats moored in this short section and several more arrived late and failing to find a space had to keep going.  Starting early obviously paid off.

We were lucky to be able to drive Zena right down to Oliver at The Inlet particularly as there was a light drizzle at the time.  It only took a couple of minutes to get our few necessities of life on board and for Toby and Sarah to stuff Zena to the roof before making their way home.

The hotel boat “Kailani” moored up next to us and mentioned that they had met Oliver earlier on their trip from Devizes.  The skipper said he had wondered how on earth Toby and Sarah had hoped to get from Northampton and back in three weeks!

We then had a stroll around Bristol City Centre stopping for “Romy’s Birthday Lunch” at the Pitcher and Piano.  We had a short visit to the Cathedral our exit being hastened by the overpowering smoke and smell of incense.

The wind really built up through the day and it became very chilly when the sun went behind the clouds.

It was striking to see how Bristol merged the ancient arts of ship building with a modern harbour area.