Well that was a surprise

The plan was to depart from our mooring around 10am in time to meet boats coming up the Caen Hill Locks.  The locks are left empty every night and the flight doesn’t open until 8am. If we could time our arrival at the top around the same time as the first boat arrived from below then all the locks would be full.  Great plan, but like most plans it didn’t work!

Jan was up well by 5am and I was awoken at 6am.  We became bored waiting around and departed from our mooring at 7.20.  The volunteer lock keeper had just arrived when we approached the top lock.  To our surprise he told us there were no boats coming up and he would assist us down by filling the locks in front of Waiouru and opening one top gate.  This greatly improved our speed and Jan thanked him profusely when we reached the bottom.  We had the flight to ourselves until we reached the 3rd to last lock.

Boaters coming up the flight can stop at the top on the 24 hour patron mooring beside the Black Horse Pub.

A rather panoramic view from the top lock.

Every lock has a side pound which can easily be seen in Google Earth.

Jan was going to take photos on the way down the flight but when she attempted to take the first photo she discovered the camera battery was flat!  No problem….. I got her older compact digital camera out.  Alas, that one also had a flat battery!  So no photos of the journey down the flight. Oh well, there will be an opportunity on the way back.

It’s a lovely sunny Saturday…….where are all the boats and gongoozlers?  The lock keeper informed us Saturday can be a quiet day.  Fridays and Sundays are usually busy with returning or departing boats from the nearby hire bases. 

We enjoyed the day and it certainly was far quieter than we had expected!