Caening It

The Caen (pronounced "cane"*) Hill  flight at Devizes is comprised of twenty-nine locks, split unofficially into three sections; from the bottom you have seven at Foxhangers, then the main flight of sixteen, followed by another six at the top. We had been advised it would take a day to get through the flight, but as we are becoming more aware, most people on the canal don't really go for it.

It makes sense really. It's a slower pace of life on the canals and there really isn't much need to move with much urgency. It's not like you ever have to get back before the tide turns, or that storm on the horizon catches up with you. No, there normally isn't any reason to rush, or spend every daylight hour cruising just to get as far as possible in a day. After all, the pubs don't move and you're almost always within walking distance of a cool pint. However, it's useful for us to be able to get back to the boat at the weekends and also convienient if we don't have to travel 70 odd miles to do so. So we had planned to get from Trowbridge to Bedwyn in a weekend, which is a fair old way.

With views like these you can see why people aren't rushing about.

... and this. Relax!

On paper you think it should be fairly straightforward, even when you assume an average pace of 3 miles per hour (walking pace) it should be achievable. But a flight of twenty-nine locks will give you a run for your money, and then throw in a couple of swing bridges, a tunnel, and a couple more handfuls of locks, and you've got yourself a pretty full weekend ahead of you. But we're young, relatively fit, and after all, how hard can it be?

I set off (single handed) at about half nine on a Saturday morning. The wether forecast had been mixed for the weekend so I wasn't really expecting much sunshine, but before long the sun was out and I had my sunglasses on, and my jumper off. All good so far.

Approaching the bottom of the main flight at Devizes.

I often think we cruise a little slower on average than most other boaters. Maybe because I'm trying to balance speed against not running the batteries down, and am still unsure how slowly I should be passing moored boats (no one has shouted yet!) but I was following The Big Apple at some distance so tried to keep them in sight to use them as pacemakers. They're a bloody big boat so not hard to miss even in the distance.

Making good progress I passed through miles of rural Wiltshire before encountering my first obstacle: Semington is home to two locks. No problem, I've got Caen hill to get through, two locks is nothing.

Swing bridges pose an intersting problem for single handers. You stop on the off side (the non-towpath side), open the bridge, take the boat through making a fairly tight turn back to the off side to stop again so you can close the bridge before setting off. All fine if you take your time and do things in a way that make sense. So I blame the boat that not only acted selfishly, but in a manner than didn't make logical sense for my loss of a windlass. As I was opening the bridge I spotted a chap walking towards me, windlass in hand. Obviously this chap had come to open the bridge so I told him to come across with me and he could close up after his boat had come through. That way I could clear the bridge and his mates could pick him up from the off side bank that's easier to get the boat to due to the bridge mooring. Makes sense from a "sharing the work" point of view and also made logical sense to do it that way.

So he comes over, I open the bridge, untie my boat and suddenly theres a bloody boat coming through the bridge! I was more annoyed that they couldn't see that they'd made more work for everyone than the fact they'd just sailed on through when I'd done all the work to get the bridge out of the way. Their mate still had to close the bridge but then had to run to catch them up and they were last seen struggling to get close enough to the bank to pick him up.

In true British fashion I kept quiet and merely muttered something under my breath when they were well out of earshot, and carried on my way. It wasn't until I got to the next lock (the Seend flight) that I realised I'd left my windlass behind in my frustration!

I should've fined the guy who bridge-jumped!

Cursing my luck I continued up towards Caen Hill. As we approached the bottom of the main sixteen locks we were approached by one of the lock keepers. This normally bodes unwell. Caen Hill is closed at night to stop the surroinding land becoming flooded by locks being left full overnight so they chain the locks closed to stop anyone cruising through after hours.

Luckily for us the weather was good and we were in the bottom lock by two minutes past five, having been told "If you're in the lock by five, you can go through". Well we were in the lock and there was no one to say otherwise, so up we went.

Rise up from the depths below! Gongoozlers look on...

It's advisable to have some help with you for the flight, and fortunately I'd recruited a crew of 5 including myself. This means you can have someone controlling the boat, someone ahead of you at the next lock getting it ready for you to go into, and 3 others helping you through the current lock. It also means that hopefully you get a good rhythm going and before long, you're at the top. There is also an advantage to being the last boat on the flight, and that's that the lock keepers will come and help you through as they stay until 8pm every day in the summer.

Looking back down the Caen Hill flight.

It takes about two and a half hours to get through the main flight, so we stopped at about half past seven and moored above the flight for the night. As far as days go, this had been a fairly long one and there was a pub in sight so we decided we'd moor up and and head for some refreshment.

The Black Dog is situated at the top of Caen Hill, ideally positioned to entice in the tourists and boaters alike. It's full of interesting canal posters (if you're into that sort of thing) and serves good beer and cider, unfortunately the food leaves something to be desired. Go for a drink, but head to the Bridge Inn a couple of miles further out of Devizes if you want good food.

A photo of Lock 28 as seen in the Black Dog

We slept on the boat that night for the first time which was a bit of a milestone for us as we'd have been dripped on if we had tried to do it before. The following morning we set off at about half past seven and got up through the remaining seven locks that make up the rest of the Caen Hill flight. Once we had got through these seven locks we were on the "long pound". A fifteen mile stretch of water that contours with the land to stay at the same level all of the way throught the Vale of Pewsey until you come to Wooton Rivers.

Bed for the night, Cean Hill drops away behind us.

After the locks at Wooton Rivers you come to the top pound of the Kennett and Avon canal, and the only tunnell on our journey, indeed the only tunnel on the K&A - the Bruce Tunnel. As we apprached the tunnel entrance, we could see another boat coming towards us so I decided to wait for them to clear the tunnel before we entered. Whilst the tunnel is wide enough for two narrowboats to pass, it's not really that easy to see exactly where all of the obstacles are so I played it safe.

A light in the black.

We were warned that there was "half a tree" stuck in the tunnel and advised to avoid it, which proved easier than it sounded as we could see where it was and it wasn't as big an obstacle as we were lead to believe.

Plaque commemorating hte construction of the tunnel.

 We stopped for the day jut past Crofton, about a mile away from Great Bedwyn, hopped on our bikes and got to the train station about three minutes after the train had left. As the next one was in two hours we thought it best if we headed to the local pub. The Cross Keys in Bedwyn serves good beer and their menu looked very promising. Unfortunately they had stopped serving for the day but Alex the barman gave us the local Indian takeaway menu and told us we could order food to be delivered, and they'd even give us cutlery and warm plates. Amazing. Food was ordered and consumed in record time, pints were drunk, and the train left carrying two tired but content souls.

So we've learned that if you put your mind to it and do decide to really go for it then you can make a fair amount of progress. We've also learned about a couple of the canalside pubs which is always important, especially when the service (and beer) is as good as we were offered in the Cross Keys. If you ever find yourself in Great Bedwyn, I'd urge you to have a drink there.



*I read somewhere that the flight got it's name from the workers who were employed to build the locks hailing from Caen, France. So it's odd that it's pronounced "cane", and not Caen. However, it makes the pun in the title work so can't complain, mustn't grumble.