No, I'm not being ironic. Don't be put off by talk of weed and dull housing estates. We boated along the Slough Arm today, there and (almost) back, and it was a pleasant, quiet (apart from just one place where the M25 crosses) cruise. Yes, it's fairly straight but, hey, it was one of the last canals to be built and by then they'd worked out what the shortest distance between two points is. The arm is not without interest, crossing three rivers on aqueducts in the first mile.
As soon as we turned off the GU main line we hit duck weed, but this didn't impede our progress unduly.
Yes, I did visit the weed hatch four times to pull out shredded plastic and weed, but there were compensations. Such as this kingfisher which posed for me (I still can't seem to take a decent photo of one).
The duckweed section wasn't very long, giving way to clumps of a thin green fibrous matting- type of weed (blanket weed?) which I had occasionally to push off the stem post as we went along. At one point someone had emptied several packets of sliced bread onto the water, presumably in a misguided attempt to feed the ducks.
At Iver on the offside there was a long line of doubled-up - and tripled-up - boats on long term moorings; apart from these and a total of four boats tied up on the towpath we saw no boats. Ours was the only moving boat on the arm.
Nicholson's warns that the canal gets shallow west of Uxbridge Road Bridge 11, but we found plenty of depth throughout. It must have been dredged since the Nicholson's researcher last investigated.
And so we reached the end. The canal just peters out at a residential street. There's a good size winding hole and a water point hiding in the undergrowth - and that's it.
I feel slightly guilty that we didn't tie up and have a look round Slough; perhaps we will next time.
Speaking of Uxbridge … here's a shot of Uxbridge Underground Station from yesterday.
This morning, before we set off, we went to Waterloo Road Church with Stuart and Deborah. It could hardly have been closer, being opposite the entrance to the Uxbridge Boat Centre and the Hillingdon Canal Club moorings. At the chandlery I bought some lengths of brass rod and fittings to replace our plasticky lower curtain rails. They didn't have quite enough; I should be meeting up with the last one at Waltham Abbey.
Tomorrow we'll rejoin the main line, stop off at Bull's Bridge for Tesco and go along the Paddington Branch to central London.
4 comments:
Halfie you must be easily interested :-) We found the Slough Arm to be an uninspiring straight and boring drainage ditch. The end was an extreme disappointment. Slough obviously isn't interested in the canal! I suspect our impression whould have been completely different had the proposed extension to the Thames been built!
My favourite comment about the end of the Slough Arm is that when you get there, there’s no there there!
By the way, there’s an even more convenient Tesco with nicer moorings before Bull’s Bridge. It’s on the left hand side not long after you turn out of the Slough Arm. It has flats built over it, and there’s a very handy entrance from the towpath.
I think the duckweed will be your constant companion for a few weeks.
Tom, I just enjoy boating - especially when it's a "new" waterway. Yes, a visitor mooring at the end might tempt people to explore the town, but the arm was certainly not as boring as many say.
Adam, see above, and … I read your comment just after we'd passed the Tesco you described. We were fortunate with a free mooring at Bulls Bridge Tesco though.
Andy, oh. Does the green stuff extend up the Lee and Stort? Is this a particularly bad (good) year for it?
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