A nine to five trip

We got to Stourport and did some shopping.
Then had a look round the basins. The river Severn was low and slow ready for our trip down.

We set off at nine to go down into the basin for water and elsan dump before doing the four locks down to the river.

A narrowboat called Brief Encounter followed us down to the first lock. As it turned out the crew intended to head the same way as us.

There is just nowhere to stop on the river and after the second lock we soon found the Droitwich canal entrance.

A convenient landing stage enabled both boats to stop and operate the wide Hawford lock. There was already one smart motor boat in the lock but the owner had lost his windlass and was waiting for help. We managed to get both our boats in and went up. 

The locks are all wide up to Droitwich because of the salt barges that used to travel down to the river.

But the canal is now narrowed by reeds although quite deep enough.

Each lock had a new landing stage.

All eight wide locks were completed and a few miles on we found the secure visitor moorings by five o'clock! 30 lock miles in one day is a record for us.