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| Last mooring before Saul |
We had a lie in though, not getting up until about 8.30am then our visitors from yesterday, after they had dropped the children to school, came back to Hardwicke and came aboard for the free ride to Saul.
As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so with 10 seconds or so of tuition, I had the stowaways working for their passage and guiding Angel towards Parkend Bridge, and a good job they both did!
Even though we have been on the slowest speed today, as we don't have the pressure we've had of recent parts of the journey, it doesn't take long to traverse the 4 miles down to Saul. Two swing bridges is all that we had to contend with and these are both manned, the power to stop traffic!
It appears that we can't turn immediately left towards the marina and will have to go past Saul Junction, turn around and approach from the Sharpness end.
There was a large boat, run by the Willow Trust, waiting in the winding hole to set sail, so we moored just south of the winding hole and waited for them to turn around. The skipper of that ship made it look easy and he spun his boat around with such grace and precision, like a swan.
And so we turn around and head towards the final canal system of our journey, the Stroudwater canal. Of course we are only on that for about 3 minutes and a couple of hundred yards, it will be great when this canal is fully restored.
And so with one manoeuvre left, to park 'Angel' into bay 35, our journey home comes to an end. This will take some precision piloting, having not attempted this before, but I look at this as if it was one of those narrow locks and managed to swing around at exactly the right angle and park her perfectly, a relief.
Well it's been a real adventure and experience for us all. Even though it has been a little fraught at times, and a lot of mucking about moving cars and carrying lots of bags down dark wet towpaths, we are so pleased that we did this ourselves and not paid a helmsman to bring her back.
We have learned so much, met so many nice people, seen so many idilic places and had such a great time, switching off for three weekends in a row. It's been really good for us as a family as everyone has a job to do, but also there is time to relax. The boys have enjoyed themselves and particularly waking up to us travelling along and always having to ask 'where are we'. They have carried out their duties like professionals, and although some of the locks have taken quite a bit of physical strength, they have both stepped up to the challenge and worked without complaint, 117 locks, well done boys!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped us on our journey, to Shelley's mum and Allen for their surprise home coming welcome, but especially to the crew, Shelley, Ryan, Aaron, without whom, this journey would not have happened (and I am told thanks to me for skippering).
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| The Stroudwater Canal |
And so with one manoeuvre left, to park 'Angel' into bay 35, our journey home comes to an end. This will take some precision piloting, having not attempted this before, but I look at this as if it was one of those narrow locks and managed to swing around at exactly the right angle and park her perfectly, a relief.
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| Angel, safely in her home Mooring |
We have learned so much, met so many nice people, seen so many idilic places and had such a great time, switching off for three weekends in a row. It's been really good for us as a family as everyone has a job to do, but also there is time to relax. The boys have enjoyed themselves and particularly waking up to us travelling along and always having to ask 'where are we'. They have carried out their duties like professionals, and although some of the locks have taken quite a bit of physical strength, they have both stepped up to the challenge and worked without complaint, 117 locks, well done boys!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped us on our journey, to Shelley's mum and Allen for their surprise home coming welcome, but especially to the crew, Shelley, Ryan, Aaron, without whom, this journey would not have happened (and I am told thanks to me for skippering).
The Crew
Todays Travel Map
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