"I'm thinking of heading up the Flight", I said to my boat neighbour at Bradford on Avon a few weeks ago.
"It's a lot quieter up there," she said. "And the people are a bit more... individual".
"I should be right at home then," I quipped....
I'm talking Caen Flight here, that sequence of 29 locks that takes the Kennet and Avon canal out of the Avon valley into the wide open spaces of the Vale of Pewsey.
Since it's hard going at the best of times and would take an age doing it solo, I was accompanied by some old welsh friends, Gareth and Andrew; Andrew was visiting from Fremantle, Australia, where he lives these days.
Andrew looking surprisingly cheerful near the top
Gareth in action
We joined up with another boat at the foot of the flight; Dave was another singlehander, being helped by a couple of chaps whom he'd helped up the day before. There's a lot of this sort of thing goes on, on the cnals. It's one of the things I really like about them. We tied the two boats together fore and aft, so we were able to chug out of each lock and straight into the next one with the minimum of fuss and manoeuvring.
journey's end
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