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River Severn Potter
Last weekend we did a short trip on the River Thames, so we decided to give the River Severn a try this weekend.
Due to other commitments we met up quite late in the day at 12 at Severnside Boat and Caravan Park near Apperley. Its a private slipway and cost us £10/boat and included free parking at the very top of the slip. We are fairly used to launching and it was a nice steep slipway but we were advised to stay off the bottom of the slipway as it was very slippy. There were no public slipways anywhere along our route that I could make out.
Once afloat we headed down river towards Gloucester Docks. We saw maybe a max of 6 boats all day and given all the information on the CRT website, warning about everything, its hardly surprising. The website was quite difficult to use and it really wasn't clear at all what we needed to produce to go afloat so we hedged our bets and got a visitor licence with no BSS. We probably could have got away without paying but at £22 its hard to begrudge them.
There was a lot a debris in the river and in some areas huge shoals where the river bed pokes through the surface. We have an echosounder and it was mostly around 2m deep but it frequent came up to 0.8m in a few places.
The top bit of the river was wide with slow meandering curves. As we headed closer to Gloucester it became very narrow, almost too tight for two boats to pass tbh. Some very big concrete banks and sheet piling started to appear and debris (an entire floating tree!) littered the river and the banks.
A quick call on the radio (VHF74) got us into Gloucester Lock which has a CRT member of staff. It was very mucky but it was very nice being able to pop up in the middle of the dock with everything going on. An interesting situation unfolded with several model yachts racing in the basin - fortunately the rule of the jungle won and the model yachts quickly disappeared!
We moored up in the docks and nobody chased us for mooring fees at all - we were welcomed. There a pretty impressive choice of restaurants but the youngsters rather dictated the choice - chicken nuggets, pizza and meatballs - haute cuisine indeed!
Unsure as to when the lock keeper went off duty, I made a quick phone call and we were reassure we still had time to lock out. The trip back was slower against the flow and we didn't see any boats at all on our return journey. A quick recovery and we were on the road by about 7pm.
So all in all it was nice to try somewhere different. I would recommend it as a nice trailer-able boat trip, if you fancy something different.
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Eastern Thunder
Northern Exposure 5
