{"id":1818,"date":"2018-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2018-06-25T21:50:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T20:50:37","slug":"four-waterways-in-one-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/?p=1818","title":{"rendered":"Four Waterways in One Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve managed to escape most of the World Cup, but with the England match looming on Sunday, I had to agree to plans, so we would be moored up for tomorrow’s 1pm match.\u00a0 That meant a longer day today, and an early start – well 7.30 cast off, that’s early for Toby!<\/p>\n

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Calm waters on The Severn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was so early, even the swans were still sleeping<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We turned on to the recently restored Droitwich Barge Canal, no lock keeper here, it was back to DIY.\u00a0 A bird was sat on the first lock gate and wouldn’t move, I didn’t like it and sent Toby to open the gates. Picture below of the defendant – any ideas what it is? (he was a LOT bigger in real life!)<\/p>\n

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A new bird on the canals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We slowly worked our way through the various twists and turns, this canal felt quite different with the very high reed beds between the canal and the towpath.\u00a0 Toby did a great job steering with oncoming boats, although had a near miss with a bend and bridge.<\/p>\n

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Getting used to the narrow canal after the wide river<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not that I knew it at the time, as it felt like the same canal, but we soon entered the Junction Canal<\/p>\n

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Just in case you needed help in where to aim!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’d been having sleepless nights about the next tunnel which runs under the M5 and is low. We were advised to fill up with water so our bow sat low (water tank filled to the brim), and Toby removed the chimney. Luckily for us and all this dry weather, the water levels were low, and we passed through with inches to spare.<\/p>\n

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Height level board for the tunnel under the M5<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Not much room to spare!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Toby wasn’t able to stand at the tiller, and had to sit on the locker and steer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A staircase lock, and then three final locks which were manned by volunteer lock-keepers…yey!\u00a0 The lock paddles are different here, with side channels in the lock connected to side pounds.<\/p>\n

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Entering the staircase lock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 16 locks, we turned on to the Worcester and Birmingham canal. We soon moored up and celebrated making such good progress with an ice pole.<\/p>\n

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Our mooring and home for the night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[[CPRS:5]]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve managed to escape most of the World Cup, but with the England match looming on Sunday, I had to agree to plans, so we would be moored up for tomorrow’s 1pm match.\u00a0 That meant a longer day today, and an early start – well 7.30 cast off, that’s early for Toby! We turned on … Continue reading Four Waterways in One Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avon-ring-2018"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8PLyH-tk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toby200.net\/oliver\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}