More Olympic Park waterways travelled

We had a long day yesterday - that's why I'm writing this the day after, rather than in the evening of the day itself (if you see what I mean). Long, but certainly interesting, and including waters new to us.

My alarm went off at 0600. I wanted to be sure that we were ready to go as soon as Tottenham Lock was mended. The first CRT team which looked at the problem said that if people were sent from Enfield then they could be here early, which they were. They pressed a couple of buttons and - look! - both top gates started to close. The problem had been a hydraulic pump overheating. No doubt they reset the system and all came back to life.

WB Pericles said that we could go first as we had the time constraint of a booked passage through Carpenter's Road Lock later that morning. At 0800 We were successfully worked through Tottenham Lock by CRT, then we made a dash for the Olympic Park. At Old Ford Lock we saw Joe, the helpful and friendly CRT person who was going to see us through Carpenter's Road Lock. In the end we must have been about 45 minutes later than our booked time of 0900 there.

This is the lock, approached under a highly reflective footbridge.

Carpenter's Road Lock is the only one in the country with a radial gate at each end. Having passed under the first gate ...

… the gate closed behind us; then the next gate was opened slightly to equalise the level with the river beyond. As this is all part of flood control, the level here could be higher or lower than the previous pound. In this case it was lower.

With the gate raised sufficiently we left the lock and turned right onto the Waterworks River. This is looking back towards the upper end of the Waterworks River, which I had wanted to explore but Joe said it was too shallow. It also seems to be outside CRT's jurisdiction, although Nicholson marks it as navigable.

Did I mention that we had been joined by David, Penny and Florence? No? They boarded at Carpenter's Road Lock. Do you like this twin peaks photo? That's the Olympic swimming pool.

Just before City Mill Lock we turned left onto Three Mill Wall River, passing a sculpture inspired, so the sign said, on pick-up-sticks.

We continued south for a short distance, then turned left to nose into the Prescott Channel. I had intended to go down to Three Mills Lock and wind above it, but the channel looked a bit too narrow with shallow sloping sides so I reversed out and went back to City Mill Lock.

This, again, is built to be able to cope with varying levels and has two sets of V-gates at each end.

Emerging from City Mill Lock took us on to the Bow Back River ...

… we wanted to make a very sharp right turn onto the City Mill River.

This manoeuvre completed, we came round past the Olympic Stadium, now the home of West Ham United FC (photos in a previous post) and rejoined the River Lee Navigation where we went straight up Old Ford Lock. At the junction with the Hertford Union Canal we turned left to go up (confusingly) Old Ford Locks. Our guests stayed with us until Regent's Park. Approaching Camden I got talking to two Spaniards who were interested in seeing us work through the lock.

We briefly considered seeing if we could find a space in Paddington Basin, but decided to carry on to Harrow Road Bridge 3 where we had moored three weeks ago. We tied up alongside Go with the Flow, another IWA festival attendee.

After another early start (Go with the Flow wanted to set off before 0730) we are now making our way through west London on the Paddington Branch.