Semington

Today's Canal : Kennet and Avon

We were away in good time this morning, just on 9 o'clock. Our overnight mooring had been opposite the Foxhangers hire base and just before the remains of the railway line that once ran through Devizes.

This line was only ever a branch line, Devizes having lost out to Swindon as a principal base for the GWR. It eventually close in 1966 as part of the Beeching plans to 'modernise' (ie reduce) the network. Although the line is still visible in many places, such as here, too much has been built over to consider its restoration. There are active plans to open a Devizes Parkway station just out of town and on the remaining main line.

Immediately after passing the bridge abutments, we came to the entrance to Caen Hill Marina. This was opened just over ten years ago and holds just under 250 boats.` It is part of group of marinas built and owned by Land and Water, a major contractor to CaRT. Little of the layout can be seen from the entrance, under a classic style lift bridge.

On this next pound, before the locks at Seend, we passed through two swing bridges, which proved to be comparatively easy to move.

Much of this canal is kept navigable by pumping water uphill in stages. Both the Seend and Semington locks have back pumps and they seemed to be keeping pace with the demand, seen here at the second lock down. It is said that some of the water in the summit pound at Crofton has come all the way from the Avon in Bath.

We had a pause after three locks to make use of the boater facilities opposite the Barge Inn.

After the five Seend Locks we passed through three more swing bridges, the first is only a footpath and was very light to move.

Shortly after he second we spotted what looked like a good piece of bank for mooring, in between two other boats. Alas, there was not really enough depth for where we could pull in and even after a lot of huffing and puffing we were still some distance from the bank. It was, however, enough to have lunch. We were not quite finished when several boats, including two wide beams, came past and we realised that the pin had been pulled at one end. Must be time to move on!

We missed a photo of the last swing bridge as we were distracted by two boats following on - they were somewhat inexperienced and seemed a bit intimidated by the prospect of squeezing through the lift bridges!

Just above the first Semington lock we could see the back pumps working hard.

Below the lock we could see again what looked like an OK mooring - it is a shortish pound but 5 or 6 other boats were also moored here so we pulled in. Wonder of wonders, we could actually moor close to the bank.

Late afternoon there was some quite heavy rain so we were not sorry that we stopped cruising  a bit early.

4.2 Miles - 6 Locks