On to Gloucester

 Friday July 9 Tewkesbury and on to Gloucester (13 miles, 2 locks)

After breakfast, we clambered up onto the quay and had a good walk around town. We appreciate all the (fairly) unspoilt Tudor buildings along the Main Street, busy with traffic.

After a good Costa coffee, we returned to Annie via the lock. John took this photo of the warehouses, which looked to be leaning to him!!

 From our weedy quay we set off for Upper Lode Lock, the only one before the lock you must respect at Gloucester Docks.

We shared the lock with NB Flint, who then turned and moored at Lower Lode Hotel, by the Cheltenham College boathouse and the second confluence with the Avon. Soon after, we passed the Yew Tree Inn moorings, by the Avon Sailing Club, where we have stopped before, and then, hidden by willows, the Coal House inn moorings.Haw Bridge Inn moorings, where we saw the hotel boat Duke 2 again, is the last for a while, as you can’t moor at the Red Lion or The Boat at Ashleworth safely. That’s enough info for the drinkers!!

It’s pleasant if unexciting scenery, but at least you can see more nearer to Gloucester, as the banks become lower in places.

At Upper Parting we left the main river to follow the narrower, winding channel three miles to Gloucester Docks. John rang the lock keeper, and we had to wait “on the chains” with a following narrowboat, against the high brick wall, once a sailing ship jetty. 

John looped the stern rope around the chain on the wall so the current did not sweep us past the lock. John spoke again to the lock after a huge white cruiser appeared and just missed the narrowboat waiting behind us. He told us it had taken an hour to travel the thirty miles from Worcester!! So much for the speed limit.

The two steel boats entered Gloucester Lock first, then the cruiser,  with plenty of revs and aiming left, as the current sweeps you to the right just as you are about to enter the lock. Worth knowing!!

There was plenty of room on the visitor moorings close by the lock. These have a great view of the Dock area.