Narrow boat passes through the Kennet River lock in center of Reading, England

While visiting Alison's daughter in Reading I kept seeing narrow boats traveling up and down the Kennet River behind her house. On a walk down to the center of town to do a mini pub crawl, as we passed this lock on the river a pair of narrow boats traveling tied together came by and I was able to film them going through the lock. The canal/river system in England is being maintained, but the locks no longer have lockkeepers. You can see the woman jump off the boat and run upstream to the lock to open the valves in the lower lock and then open the lock gates. After the boats are in the lock they close the gate and the valves, then open the valves on the upper lock so they can open those gates and proceed. Completed in 1810, the Kennet and Avon Canal provides a continuous waterway from London to Bristol. The Canal is partly a canalised river and elsewhere man made channels. 87 mles of man made waterway links the River Kennet in Reading with the River Avon at Bristol. This is the first lock above the Thames/Kennet junctions, the Hanham Lock. From the Canal's summit, 450 feet above sea level, the eastern descent from Crofton Locks to the River Thames at Reading some 52 locks were built over a distance of 35 miles. You need the Flash plugin to see the video, click the play button to start the video. This video was taken with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2. A $200 camera designed mainly for still photography, it will take a 30 minute 30 frames/second video with sound if you have the 1 Gig memory card. Sailing Video Index