Kintbury

Presently moored just west of Newbury at Kintbury.  Had lunch at the Dundas Arms, which overlooks Kintbury lock, followed by a stroll round the village.  People we’ve met seem to rate the DA but we found it an ordinary pub with a very overpriced menu.

The last blog saw us at Seend Cleeve; since then we have travelled back up the Caen flight, past Devizes, through the Vale of Pewsey, stayed for two days in Hungerford, before arriving at Kintbury this morning.

The Vale of Pewsey is probably one of the most scenic parts of the whole trip.  Rolling chalk hills, two white horses, medieval hill forts and plenty of rights of way.  We had planned to spend days here walking and enjoying the countryside, but due to the shortcomings of the K&A moorings our plans never materialised. 

The K&A has fundamental problems in two areas directly affecting visitors such as ourselves.  Firstly there is a lack of visitor’s moorings over very long stretches of the canal and secondly there’s a large number of so called ‘casual cruisers’ that do not abide by the rules, and are obviously not casual cruisers at all.  Where there are visitor’s mooring it is not uncommon to find them in use by these so-called casual cruisers, who also seem to want to take over the whole towpath at the same time.  As a result many areas that visitors would like to stop at are unsightly, and are positively discouraged from stopping.  Everyone we have talked to complains about the issue, and in the majority of cases are quite adamant, that they will never return to the K&A.

Hungerford was an enjoyable stop.  A small town straddling the canal, full of antique shops.. Having complained in the above paragraph, we were lucky to find a good mooring and to cap it off it was warm and dry.

Hungerford canal side.

Tomorrow we pass Newbury, hoping to moor close to Thatcham, and move onto the Thames the day after.