Excitement......some generating activity, some welcome respite

The run from Great Bedwyn to Hungerford is delightful and I am sure you would have to search hard to find a more perfect section of canal. The countryside around here is so quintessentially English, especially in late spring and on a sunny day like ours.

Approaching Hungerford, the first building you see is the impressive church ; best seen from this viewpoint. When you get a bit closer it is rather a drab, disappointing building but in a beautiful setting and it has a very well maintained churchyard. It is maybe the closest church in the country to the canal.

Kidderminster is its main contender.

 

The view from the new pedestrian footbridge, we are moored on the left so very handy for the town. There were some lovely walks nearby in the nature reserve.

Stuck for 2 days, the first was extremely windy again and the second was torrential rain all day. See above.

Some interesting back streets in town

Just beyond canal this delightful little river

At last a day of better weather to enable us to set off from Hungerford. 5minutes later it was raining again. We were heading for Kintbury and treated to another lovely day's cruising in delightful surroundings.

As we came into Kintbury the first view we had was of a rather splendid house with well-maintained gardens rolling down to the water's edge

I discovered later on that this was the old vicarage. A very impressive house even for vicarage standards. So it would appear that the village of Kintbury had some pretty high social standing in those days.

In the middle of the village I discovered a rather unusual turnstile......but thankfully no football stadium!! It protects the access to a public footpath.

Kintbury is also home to a horse drawn tourist barge.

Notices on the towpath advise you to remove all loose objects from the roof during daylight hours to allow passage of the barge. 

Here you can see why  ....................

  The barge

                                                  This is Monty from the rear

The other end

Another very wet and windy day

A rather unusual bridge still in agricultural use but one showing signs of regular use by bargees in the days when horses pulled the boats. This was the first bridge where I had noticed the tell-tate signs of the rope grooves on the bridge

We stayed in Kintbury an extra day partly due to the weather but also to allow visits from family and friends and then set off for another lovely day of cruising (at the risk of sounding boring) on this particularly lovely canal.

At regular intervals you could still see the pillboxes that still mark the Ironside line of defence of WWII.

There were many of these landmarks in various states of repair, at a variety of locations. I have mentioned them before but their continuing presence marked the enormity of this project. There were quite a few near to bridges, used as a lookout so that if the enemy were to close in, vital links like the railway could be destroyed.

So fortunately a rather uneventful day. Apart from John having further problems with his generator which he had to excite each morning to get it going. Well that's what he told me.... And that's a technical term apparently which involves terminals and batteries and all that stuff, you know.