In Gloucester Docks

Tied up in the atmospheric surroundings of Gloucester Dock

Well here we are safely tied up in Gloucester Docks surrounded by tall brick warehouses and the lasts of square rigged sailing ships. It's all richly redolent of a past age of ships and shipping. But more of that tomorrow after a trip round the Waterways Museum and some more exploring round the docks and the city.
For the moment, this is just a quick update to say that we are here, that the trip today was a whole lot let wild and windy than yesterdays – we even had moments of sunshine – and even the notoriously tricky entrance to Gloucester Dock's Lock was a bit of a pussycat.

Heading towards the lock; the main river flows past it to the weir

It is easy to imagine, though, that it can bite with some very sharp teeth should the river be running hard and the tide be high. The Seven actually splits a couple of miles out at Upper Parting where an un-navigable channel takes half the flow away towards the estuary. The remainder, now running in a deceptively narrow and appealingly rural channel brings us swiftly towards the city and the lock.
It's time to phone the lock keeper and have him prepare the lock ready for our arrival for the main river rushes right past the mouth of the lock and straight on towards a weir. It's not a place for dithering and the advice was 'drive straight in; there's plenty of room to stop when you're safe in the lock'. Which we did – and still felt the flick of the weir stream across our tail as we went through.
The monster, 200ft long lock takes an age to fill and gradually the tall warehouses come into view. We came out into the wide open space of the dock basin, spoiled for choice on mooring spots and eventually found ourselves a slot on the western wall just beside a handsome Dutch barge.