Well children are doing water as a project so we took a drive to the Kennet & Avon canal Nr Trowbridge.

The kids enjoyed walking along the Canal, a short way in they came across their first mooring point for boats to more at while they go off to work the lock.

It wasn’t long after that we came across the first lock, they asked questions about how it worked and we compared the different levels of the water from one side of the lock to the other.

Emily noticed the water gushing out at the lower end of the lock and asked where the water came from so they went looking to see where the water did come from.

they checked the whole lock area and couldn’t find where the water was coming from and to be honest they were soon to interested at looking at all the pieces that make the lock up and talking about how it all must work.
I took this picture to show the difference between the water levels at the highest end of the lock and inside the lock which was to the lower level.

Just the other side of the lock Emily heard a waterfall and we explored to find where the noise was coming from and Jessica pointed out a small waterfall which seem to lead to a drop and a tunnel under the ground! Jessica suddenly realised that this is where the water the other side was coming from and Thomas decided it must have been how they kept the level of the higher lock the same height, I then explained that it was to prevent the canal from bursting its banks and flooding the local areas and putting those who live on the canal on their boats in danger.


so we walked on again and they soon spotted a boat that was moored and looked like it was about to come through the lock.

so we asked them if they were and if they minded if we watched and they invited the children onto to boat to go have a look and asked if they would like to travel through the lock in the boat.

but as they were getting ready to adjust the lock for their boat to go through the boat owners spotted two boats wanting to come up the canal so he gave all of the children a job to do and with other members of other barges they helped the two boats by doing all the gates.

First boat going in.

Once both boats were in and the lower ends gates where closed it was time to open those Sluice Gates to fill the lock up with water and slowly rise the boats up to the higher lock level. (opening the sluice gates in the higher water end of the lock)

Once the water had risen to match that of the higher end of the canal we could open up the lock gates ready to let the boats out one by one.

the children then jumped aboard the boat and it made its way into the lock after an other boat looking to make its way down and the fun started all over again. this time Slowly lowering the level of the lock by opening the Sluice gates in the lower lock gates.

And down they went.

Lower and lower 

until the lock was once again the same height as the lower lock.

We went on to help a few more boats pass the locks and at each of the 3 locks we looked to find the waterfall and exit points. Thomas loved opening and closing the lock gates and helping the boats but with a blink of an eye it was time to head for lunch.

So we took Luke and his pushchair and headed back to the car and off to KFC and a quick stroll around the pet shop looking at the animals there.