Reaching Devizes

Earlier this week I took advantage of having the Portsmouth Harbour <-> Cardiff Central diverted to Swindon to travel direct to Melksham (on the single track line that joins Trowbridge to the Great Western Main Line. I did this so that could easily complete another section of the Kennet and Avon Canal, this time the section between Semington (just south of Melksham) to Devizes.

This section includes the Caen flight of locks, making for me an interesting walk and, I'm sure, for canal boaters, a fearsome challenge. Before you get to the actually the flight, and unlike the canal stretch from just above Bath to Bradford-on-Avon, you've already encountered a good half a dozen or more locks and then you meet this monster - a set of 16 locks achieving a gradient 1 in 30 or better (which is better than any incline on the main line railway).

Once I'd reached Devizes itself, it was a matter of a bus ride back to Salisbury for the journey home.

For the record, I've now walked (in sections) all the way from Bristol to Devizes:

1. Bristol (Temple Meads) to Keynsham (14 April 2014)
2. Keynsham to Bath (15 April 2014)
3. Bath to Bradford-on-Avon (24 April 2014)
4. Bradford-on-Avon to Trowbridge (11 June 2015)
5. Trowbridge to Melksham (12 June 2014)
6. Melksham to Devizes (26 August 2015)

(I did combine the Bath to Trowbridge sections into one on 17 August 2015, and the Keynsham to Bath section was along the cycle path on the old railway line rather than on the riverside path).

I intend to extend this to cover Avonmouth to Bristol and redo the Keynsham to Bath along the riverside at some point. Going beyond Devizes is harder - there's quite a big section to cover Devizes to Bedywn and Bedwyn is outside the "Freedom of Severn and Solent" rail rover ticket area and hence makes this trip quite a bit more expensive - still definitely a challenge worth aiming for.