It was another brilliant sunny day - the forecast suggested cloud by midday but, although we had a little around 10, the rest of the day until sunset was almost entirely blue sky.
We left our overnight mooring a bit before 9 and made our way up through the single Mildenham Mill lock before continuing on the the Ladywood flight of five.
At the first lock, the lady who lives in the former lock cottage came out to chat - very friendly and informative. She seems to have missed having the boats coming through until the past couple of weeks.
By now there were several boats on their way down which helped and we were out of the top lock by 10:40.
There is a very tight bend under the road bridge at Salwarpe village and we were determined to find a better line - none so far had avoided having to do several forwards and backwards! This time we did manage in a single sweep around but it was still rather close. The temptation is to think that one is through only to discover that there is still more to be done.
After an hour of level cruising we reached the outskirts of Droitwich.
When we arrived at the first swing bridge in Vines Park, Christine popped to Waitrose, mainly for rolls for our lunch on the way home tomorrow, leaving Mike and Andrew to work the bridges and then the age Lock meeting up again at the other end of the park.
The next lock is where the River Salwarpe joins the navigation and we had a little difficulty in getting into the lock. There seemed to be quite a bit of silt, possible brought down by the winter floods.
The next pound. which includes the short tunnel under the M5, was rather low. Although this meant we had plenty of headroom the consequence was again that we scraped our way into the next lock.
Only the two lock staircase to go and just before 1 o'clock we had turned into the marina and were looking for our pontoon. There was little wind so the manoeuvre to reverse in was uneventful - but we did unusually have an extra space next to us to help.
After lunch Mike took Andrew down to Worcester to recover his car. The rest of the afternoon was not energetic! Andrew left for home after our evening meal.
6.8 Miles - 11 Locks
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