Timelapse: Bull's Bridge to Northolt

The final stage of our summer 2010 adventures on nb Willow is recorded in this timelapse film of 4th September 2010. After touching up some paintwork on our friend's boat we left the excellent mooring at Bull's Bridge Junction at 1110 to cruise along the Paddington Branch back to the boat's home base at Northolt.



The stop along the way was for me to cycle back to have a look at the boat we'd just passed. It had had a "for sale" poster in the window with a very low price. As I'd suspected, the notice was for a different boat. Not the bargain it initially seemed!

Timelapse: Hertford to Bishop's Stortford

I've worked out that I don't need to "export" my timelapse films to get them onto YouTube. I can upload directly from iPhoto, where I load them from the timelapse camera's memory card. Doing it this way greatly increases the quality (but it does take a lot longer to upload). (For me, that is, it shouldn't affect your viewing, other than enhancing the experience (!))



Here's my latest offering, showing our 18th August 2010 cruise on Willow from Hertford on the River Lee Navigation to Bishop's Stortford on the Stort. Annoyingly, the camera's battery must have run out just before we got to the very end of the navigation, under the bridge which says "End of Navigation".

At Burnt Mill, opposite Harlow Station, we stopped for water and for me to have a shower at Moorhen Marina (3'19"); there are fine reflections at Sawbridgeworth (5'10"); and we suffer a downpour (6'24").

Now, do I go back and re-upload all my other timelapse films to the same quality?

Heeding the warning at Stanstead Lock

Our copy of Nicholson's Guide to the waterways of London, the Grand Union, the Oxford and the Lee is second-hand. The previous owner has gone over part of the navigational notes to Stanstead Lock with a blue highlighter pen. It's a warning about having to be "extremely careful" when ascending the lock - I wonder if they had problems there?


I'm always very cautious when opening gate paddles to fill a lock. This lock has no top ground paddles, so the only way to fill it is by opening the paddles on the top gates, which can, if they're opened too quickly, create enormous turbulence in the lock. This can cause boats to lurch around, or even flood them. In such situations I'm a little nervous when other people "help" with the lock operation, especially when they say there's nothing to be worried about.


In the event nothing went wrong: the paddles were opened (reasonably) carefully. I still would have preferred to have done it all myself, though.

Here's David holding Willow steady at the bow; Penny and Jan are the other end.


I have tried, unsuccessfully, to find out about the building with the interesting roof beside the lock. Anyone know what it is/was?

Handing Willow back in a fit state

Saturday 4th September 2010


We had plenty of time now to clean Willow and make it ready to hand back to our friend. Or, rather, his daughter, as he wouldn't be there himself.

So we swept, wiped, washed, polished - even touched up the paintwork. The mooring outside Tesco at Bull's Bridge was perfect for this. Despite us having bags of time, even after tying up on his mooring, we ran out of time. Our friend's daughter had to wait for us to finish hoovering and loading the last of our belongings into the car. And I'm sure we left the paintbrush and small pot of white spirit in the well deck! Oh dear!

And so comes to an end this most incident-packed narrowboat jaunt we've had.

Engine hours at the start: 236.8

Engine hours at the end: 352.7

Total hours: 115.9

If this seems on the low side bear in mind that the engine was switched off in all the Thames locks (and all the time we were propless!)

In the three weeks we did 414 miles and 175 locks. You don't half clock up the mileage on the Thames!

*******************************

And now here's something from today, Thursday 16th September 2010.


Cyclists on the Tour of Britain on their way from King's Lynn to Great Yarmouth passed through Norwich city centre at lunchtime. These weren't the leaders - two had gone by five minutes earlier.

Following the one hundred or so riders was what looked like an endless procession of support vehicles, laden with spare bikes. There seemed to be more cars than cyclists!


And preceding everything - and in the middle and at the end - dozens of police motorcycles and cars. It took only about ten minutes for the entire convoy to pass through. There was a great atmosphere in the crowd, and I came away smiling.

There was a loud bang, and the engine stopped...

After a glorious run in the sun down the Thames from Teddington we made the turn into the River Brent and saw the gates of Thames Lock close against us. The two boats in front were leaving the tideway; it would be our turn next.


And so, after two incident-packed weeks on the River Thames, we were, at last, back on the calmer waters of the canal network. But our problems weren't quite over yet.

Witnessing the latest of these was Neil of NB Herbie. He'd driven over to meet us and give us a hand up the Hanwell lock flight. Neil, it was good to see you, and thanks for your help.


We had barely started up the locks when, as you will have deduced from the title of this post, there was a loud bang, and the engine suddenly stopped dead. Here we go again! No drive, and we were drifting away from the bank. Neil, fortunately, was on the towpath and ready to catch the rope I threw him.

Lifting the weed hatch (hooray!) confirmed what I'd suspected: a submerged log had been trapped between the propeller and the boat. But it wouldn't come off. The shiny new blade of the prop had sliced into the rotting log, and it was stuck fast. Fortunately David had left a small saw behind, and I began cutting bits of wood away.


photo lifted from Herbie's blog - hope you don't mind, Neil

Eventually I was able to knock the log off with the end of the weed hatch securing bar. No damage had been done, but the boat we were locking with hadn't waited, and had gone up the lock by itself.

This could have worked out better. As Neil has already described, there were some low pounds above us, requiring lockfuls of water to be flushed down. This all took a long time, and put paid to my half-formulated plans to squeeze in the Slough Arm before breakfast before tying up that night.


Neil discovering how light the steering is on Willow

We stopped at Bull's Bridge Junction, bought some meat in Tesco, and had a barbecue. A fine relaxing end to another interesting day.

Sealing the weed hatch solves sticky problem

Thursday 2nd September 2010

It's always a good idea to have a weed hatch which seals properly when closed. After the new propeller was fitted (the first time) we ran it in gear to check that all was well. As you would. Running at quite high revs in astern I noticed the smallest, slightest - most insignificant, really - dampness weeping from a tiny part of the weed hatch seal. Under normal running I doubt whether this would have happened, and even if it had, it would have evaporated before even getting into the bilge.

I made the mistake of mentioning this minute leak to the engineer. Oh, I've got some gasket sealant, he said, and squeezed a vile black sticky goo on top of the original seal, and tightened the cover down. When, some six hours of cruising later, that prop fell off, I could not open the weed hatch. It was glued into position so firmly that, as I have already described, even inserting a long piece of four-by-two under the handle and levering up wouldn't shift it.


Well, the engineer did it by prising up the edges. This, of course, pulled away much of the original seal.


Bits of it were now stuck to the cover. It would need doing properly. But the engineer didn't have any of the proper stuff. He merely squeezed a different, "domestic", sealant around the hatch.

While at the IWA Festival I found out where to get some sealing strip from, so we'd stopped off at Val Wyatt Marine at Wargrave on Wednesday to get it from the chandlery there. I was very surprised to see one of the people who'd been on the Vetus stand working there - he gave me a good deal on the bits that I bought. As well as the sealing strip I got some Loctite for the prop shaft bolts.


We'd now caught up with our schedule to get to Teddington at the right time for getting to Brentford and Thames Locks on Friday morning, so we stopped at Chertsey Bridge for lunch at the Kingfisher pub (good value food).


James Bell on Gabriel wondering where I am, and, probably, whether we've broken down again! (Over here, James!)

While Jan went to order the food I made a start on removing the old seal and all the nasty mastic etc.


The sealing strip I bought was a self-adhesive strip of foam rubber about an inch wide, which I stuck to the underside of the weed hatch cover (after removing all traces of the mastic and cleaning it with white spirit). I thought about how to butt the joints, and came up with the design you can see in the photo.


It was really easy to do, just snipping a square off each corner, and should be watertight.


I left the remains of the old seal on the weed hatch for the owner to see. Don't know why, really. Anyway, it did the job. Now the hatch can be opened and shut!

The next time I had to open it was the next day, when there was a loud bang, and the engine suddenly stopped. That'll be tomorrow's post, then.

Boat capsizes!

Wednesday 1st September 2010

We got under way from Sonning at 0800. Nothing of huge significance happened until 1540, shortly after passing through Boulter's Lock in Maidenhead ...

Man overboard!

Girl overboard!

Boy overboard!

In front of us were three people in the water struggling with their upside-down canoe. (I didn't say it was Willow which capsized!) Jan had seen them paddling some distance ahead just moments earlier, then a large French Brothers trip boat steamed past. Its wash had tipped them over into the Thames.


By the time we arrived on the scene they'd managed to get themselves and their canoe to the bank where, handily, there were some steps leading up to someone's back garden. As they seemed to be safe, I steered Willow in pursuit of the paddle (they wouldn't have wanted to be up the creek without it, after all). I overtook it, turned, and gently steered as if to run it over so as to give Jan, leaning over the gunwale at the bow, the best chance of grabbing it out of the water. Which she did.


When we got back to the canoe its waterlogged crew had righted it, and were trying to bale it out by pushing the water out with their hands. We gave them plastic meat packaging trays and a cut-down plastic milk container to do the job more effectively, then I helped them lift the canoe (heavy) and tip the rest of the water out. Mike, and children Petra and Edward, were very grateful that we'd stopped and helped. Petra had lost a shoe, but that seemed to be the only casualty. I didn't ask about mobile phones! They had hired the canoe to paddle from Marlow to Windsor, so they still had over five miles and two locks to go. We shared Bray Lock with them, and they still seemed cheerful!


It was one of these wot did it!


And now an observation about a different sort of water. The water you can drink.

Hours before all this excitement, above Shiplake Lock we watered up and emptied the elsan. We liked the Environment Agency water points. They're more widely spaced than those on the canals, that's true, but we had a useful EA guide to facilities at locks. And they seem to be found only at locks. (The guide would have been even more useful had it indicated whether the water point was above or below the lock.) They're like fire hoses. You simply pull a large bore rubbery hose, often coloured red, from the fixed but swivelling reel, stuff the end in the water tank filler, and get a crew member to turn it on (gently at first!). Done in no time! And you don't have to mess about with your own garden hose reel.

That night we moored at Windsor, by the Brocas, actually paying for the privilege! We had a great view of the castle from the boat, and we ate at the Al Fassia (Moroccan) restaurant. Excellent.

Tomorrow: tackling the weed hatch sealing job.

Rescuer is rescued, and Halfie falls in again

Tuesday 31st August 2010

The IWA Festival is over, but there's still a festival spirit on the morning after. A misty start gave the opportunity for some foggy photos. Here are fuel boats Archimedes and Ara ministering to the needs of boaters, delivering diesel and coal.


And then I spotted something which was rather familiar from our experiences of the previous week. Just discernible on the far side of the river were two boats, one almost in the trees, and one coming alongside.


It soon became clear that the first boat was in difficulties, and was being breasted up to another to pull it out of trouble.


And then I saw that the stricken boat was Ein Cariad, the very boat which had rescued us at Bablock Hythe when our first propeller fell off. I was there to take a rope as the boats came alongside Chris Colborne's (?) boat, assisting in the rescue of our rescuer. I know boaters help each other, but I wasn't expecting to be able to repay (in a very small way) the kindness shown to us so directly and so soon!


Like what happened to us, Ein Cariad had no drive, but it wasn't through losing its prop. A lot of smoke was reported to be coming from the gearbox. A check revealed that there was hardly any oil in it, but there was no evident reason for its loss. The boat was under way again later after a topup.

We had a booked slot at the next lock downstream, Whitchurch Lock, at 1420, so we left our mooring at 1350 so as to be in good time. The sun had burned off the fog quickly, and it was a lovely warm day. Above Sonning Lock we saw somewhere to tie up for the night where there was still some sunshine. Good, we'll have a barbecue, I thought, and turned Willow to face upstream and brought it in to the bank. Slight problem: awkwardly positioned trees and brambles, and, worse, some submerged branches preventing the bow getting where I wanted it.

With someone from Dizzy Duck holding a rope I stepped into the bow with the long boat hook and started fending off from the trees. To give myself space, and something to push against, I must have stood on the gunwale furthest from the bank. And pushed. Too hard. I started losing my balance. Uh oh ... I'm going in ... and SPLOSH! Still holding the boat hook I was in the Thames for the third time in a week. Oh well, now that I was in, I might as well clear the underwater obstruction, so I pulled the submerged branches out of the way.


It was easy to stand up and put the boat hook on board, but not so simple to get out myself. I had a go at getting onto the bow, but the overhang and lack of footholds made that impossible. The bank was steep and covered in brambles, so that was going to be pretty difficult too. Then our Dizzy Duck helper said she had a ladder, and went to get a short aluminium ladder. This was the perfect thing. With the ladder against the brambles, and its feet on the river bed it was just long enough for me to be able to climb out. Had the ladder not been available I suppose I would have had to wade along to an easier bit of bank, or go to the back of the boat and climb onto the counter.

On this particular underwater excursion (my hat got wet) I had the usual complement of things in my pockets, including two mobile phones and my wallet. Oops! I opened up the phones and shook the water out. My "work" phone had water between the screen and the LCD display, but this dried out successfully and still works. My "personal" phone, on the other hand (in the other pocket) hasn't fared so well. Most of the time it thinks there's no signal, and therefore won't connect. I was worried that all the postage stamps in my wallet might have stuck together, but they peeled apart and seem to be all right after drying out. I filled a large part of the floor with drying receipts, cards, stamps, twenty pound notes, BW cycling permit ... I hadn't realised my wallet contained so much stuff!

In the next post: Boat capsizes!

Our rescuers get an award

Monday 30th August 2010


In the IWA members' enclosure (or whatever they call it) we had a cup of tea with Bernard and Ann Hughes of Ein Cariad. They are the kind people who interrupted their downstream passage to take Willow upstream to a mooring at Bablock Hythe after our first propeller fell off. Bernard and Ann were proudly clutching their certificate and trophy awarded for the "longest direct cruise on inland waterways" to the festival. Actually, I think points were given for enterprise too: reaching parts of the system which other boaters don't, and so on.


It's a decent size trophy. There must have been a lot of money about in 1950 when it appears to have first been awarded, at the first IWA Festival in Market Harborough.

I'll return to Bernard in tomorrow's post, when I'll reveal how, astonishingly, I was able to render assistance when Ein Cariad broke down!


I took very few photographs at the festival itself. Here's one of the Wilderness boats displaying on the lake. The next day one of these was coming towards us at 30 mph. At the time we were walking back from Pangbourne to the boat. Wilderness boats are trailable, and this one was going home. Or to another waterway. By the time I'd thought about taking a pic, it had gone. It's not like that on water! I waved, though, and both driver and passenger gave a boater's wave back from their car.


For the record, here's Willow on its mooring, with Kew, conveniently, right behind.

In the next post ... rescuing our rescuers, and entering the Thames for the third - and most spectacular - time.

Getting to the church on time, and water into diesel

Sunday 29th August 2010

To get down to the IWA Festival in time for the Boaters' Christian Festival service at 1030 meant an early start. We got under way at 0600. Early enough? We certainly beat the power coming on at Day's Lock. This meant hand winding the hydraulic gear - hard work! Mind you, at least the power didn't come on part-way through the operation as it did at Osney Lock on Wednesday on our way up.


Then, with the boat in the lock, before we had a chance to open the top gates, the power came on at 0700, and we had to go through the entire procedure of raising the top gate sluices again. This being a timed operation, we could do nothing while the sluices lifted a little, waited a long time, then lifted a little more, waited another long time, then lifted fully. And all this time the lock was full!

No such problems today, as we cleared Day's Lock by 0655. The only slight awkwardness was caused by a rowing race at Wallingford. I bet they didn't expect boaters to be about at 0800 on a Sunday morning!

Then, at 1000, a sight to gladden our hearts.


After two weeks, and two propeller fittings, at last, the northernmost boats moored up at Beale Park. All we had to do was keep going until we came to S10, and simply tie up on the outside. We were designated the outside (F) mooring anyway, so that was fine. That was done quickly, and we had a warm welcome from the harbourmaster who knew all about our little difficulties; then it was a quick visit to the Waterspace office to collect our wristbands and information pack - then we could dash to the food marquee for the service. 1020. We'd made it!

I suggested to David Litchfield, who had a hand in organising the service, that Jan could speak for a few minutes about the problems we'd had in getting there, and about how God had provided help at all the right times. This was gladly accepted, and, as you can imagine, people were hanging on every word as Jan described what happened!


The rest of the day all seemed rather busy. I talked over what had happened with the rescue service, who had a stand at the festival, and their chief engineer came to the boat and adjusted the engine alignment. He did this by "feel": adjusting the engine mounting nuts until the prop shaft seemed to run more freely (checking by turning it by hand). While he was there he also bled some water from the bottom of the fuel filter. This was very easy to do: just slightly loosen off a 10mm nut under the filter casing to let a thin stream of liquid out into a container; when this ran pure diesel just retighten. He advised doing that every fortnight. (That's every fortnight of cruising, presumably!) Earlier that morning the engine revs had suddenly dropped and returned to their original level, doing it a couple of times. This, evidently, was caused by water getting into the fuel line. I suppose the sloshing about on the tideway a week earlier had allowed some of the water sitting at the bottom of the tank to get into the filter; this was now getting into the engine. After Trevor had bled off the water we had no more trouble.

I also helped David Litchfield prepare his boat Kew for that evening's illuminated boat procession. The theme was "the Rolt years": David had suspended LTC Rolt's dates on giant letters over the boat. These would be lit by a couple of floodlights. Spot the deliberate mistake (don't worry - it was corrected before the procession)!


I was on "bow fender duty" on Kew for the procession itself, and got very cold sitting there waiting to let a tyre fender down when necessary (which was about once only). Jan was singing with the band in the hold.

We got back at about 2330. A long day!

So why don't I look for the other prop?

Saturday 28th August 2010

Brian of Harnser asks in an e-mail why I don't go back to where the first prop disappeared and find that one. Well, I did trawl the long boat hook behind me as we passed that part of the river on our way back downstream, but holding the pole vertically down I could barely touch the river bed. It must be about 12 feet deep there, so, short of filling my pockets with lead weights and getting an extra length snorkel, there's no way I could feel for it with my feet.

To carry on with the cruising log, such as it is now that it's over a week out of date, we were now on a mission to get to the IWA Festival before it finished. I mentioned a couple of days ago that the Festival was 50 miles and 18 locks downstream of where we were on the Saturday morning, and we left at 0915. I'd calculated that we could be at Beale Park by Sunday lunchtime, but a bonus would be to make it for the Boaters Christian Fellowship service at 1030. No unnecessary stops, then.

We couldn't leave a fellow boater in trouble though.

At Culham Lock I was asked if I had a magnet to help look for an important nut which a boater had accidentally swept off his counter. I can't resist a challenge like that, so, of course, out came my Sea Searcher, and I fished for it. He didn't know what the nut was made of - it was a cap nut from his skin tank and was possibly brass - and I spent several minutes in a fruitless search. He produced a bolt and said that it was a bit bigger than that, so I suggested he wrap some rag round it and stuff it in the hole as a temporary fix.


He evidently did that, or found another way to seal the cooling system, for we spotted him under way the next day.


I like the clouds and the farm buildings on top of the hill near Sandford lock.


I wonder if this was the site of a hill climbing event. Many years ago I took part in a hill climb. My rôle was to squeeze in the back of a Hillman Imp and bounce up and down while the car was driven as fast as possible up an impossibly steep dirt track. The bouncing was intended to give the car more grip. I don't think I've ever been more uncomfortable in a car! On second thoughts, I think it's more likely to be where a motocross meeting has been held. Most of the tyre tracks are single furrows.


That evening we tied up at Clifton Hampden at 2045 and sought out the Barley Mow pub. Maffi, for a good measure you must go there! I had a pint (of Old Hooky?) which was served with a convex meniscus. The only true pint I had all holiday. We shared a portion of sausages and mash, not because we were on an economy drive, but because we'd already eaten something while we were cruising.


34 and a half miles and 14 locks done today ... and we didn't even make an early start! The current really helps now.

Just 16 miles and four locks to go - could we get to the festival in time for the service at 1030?

The Great Lee, Stort and Thames Trip

Here's the plan for our cruise on board Willow. The first week should be quite gentle, with plenty of time to explore the Lee and the Stort, neither of which navigations we have been on before. We have to be at the St. Pancras Cruising Club base by Limehouse Lock for 7 pm on the Friday for a safety briefing (and food). The first part of the next day looks to be "free time"; then it's through the lock onto the tidal Thames for a cruise in a convoy to the Thames Flood Barrier and back. On the Sunday we go out onto the tideway again, heading upstream this time, again in convoy with the St. Pancras Cruising Club, to Teddington Lock. There we say goodbye and thank you to the SPCC, and continue up the Thames. My original intention was to go all the way to the head of navigation at Lechlade, then back to the IWA Festival at Beale Park near Pangbourne, but this will involve long cruising days. All right with me, but I don't want a mutiny on my hands!

After three days at the Festival we have a gentle cruise back to our starting point: Willowtree Marina on the Paddington Branch.

Here's our schedule, then. Any comments/suggestions welcome.

Sun 150810 Willowtree Marina to Islington Tunnel (east end) (Grand Union Canal Paddington Branch) 16 miles 2 furlongs 4 locks 6 hours 45 minutes

Mon 160810 Islington Tunnel to Waltham Town Lock (Paddington Branch, Regents Canal, Hertford Union Canal, Lee Navigation) 15m 2f 13L 7h 30m

Tue 170810 Waltham Town Lock to Stanstead Abbots via Hertford (Lee Navigation) 17m 5f 15L 8h 30m

Wed 180810 Stanstead Abbots to Bishop's Stortford (Lee Navigation and Stort Navigation) 15m 2f 15L 8h 0m

Thu 190810 Bishop's Stortford to Dobb's Weir (Hoddesdon) (Stort Navigation and Lee Navigation) 13m 5f 16L 8h 0m

Fri 200810 Dobb's Weir to Limehouse Basin (arriving before 1900) (Lee Navigation and Limehouse Cut) 20m 4f 12L 9h 0m

Fri 200810 at 1900: safety briefing and meal at St. Pancras Cruising Club, Limehouse

Sat 210810 Lock out of Limehouse Lock 1545 to 1645; cruise to Thames Flood Barrier, arriving about 1815; return to Limehouse about 1945. 12m 2L

Sun 220810 Lock out of Limehouse 0830 to 1000; cruise to Teddington Lock, arriving about 3.5 hours later (i.e. between 1200 and 1330). We're then carrying on to Runnymede. 40m 9L 12h 30m

Mon 230810 Runnymede to Kennet Mouth 35m 13L 13h

Tue 240810 Kennet Mouth to Folly Bridge, Oxford 38m 4f 12L 13h 30m

Wed 250810 Oxford to Radcot 41m 7f 9L 12h 45m

Thu 260810 Radcot to Eynsham Lock via Lechlade and head of navigation 44m 2f 11L 13h 30m

Fri 270810 Eynsham Lock to Beale Park for IWA Festival 37m 13L 13h 0m

Tue 310810 Beale Park to Hambleden 20m 7L 7h 15m

Wed 010910 Hambleden to Windsor 20m 7L 7h 15m

Thu 020910 Windsor to Hampton Court 18m 8L 7h 15m

Fri 030910 Hampton Court to Willowtree Marina via Brentford and Grand Union Canal 18m 14L 7h 15m

Most calculations of distances etc done with the aid of CanalPlanAC.

It's ages since we've cruised on the Thames (other than as guests on others' boats). Are there plenty of places to empty chemical loos, and are they obvious? What about water points? And moorings? Should we expect to have to pay for moorings? Do boatyards sell diesel at split duty rates?

It's been raining heavily on and off all day today. I hope that's it for the next three weeks. A little warm and sunny weather would be nice!

Cassiobury Park to Northolt (part 3)

Wednesday 18th March 2009

(Part 2 was the post about the sign)

We shared a couple of locks with Alicia


and passed an interesting Art Deco building.


At Cowley Lock there was work going on: painting of the balance beams and lock furniture.




Just below Cowley Lock the crew of Tintin were in jovial mood.


In the next post I expect to wind up the Buckby to Northolt cruise account - it depends on how many photos I took!

Not all Willows are trees

In the distant past, when we lived on the edge of Milton Keynes, and before we had children, we did some boat moving jobs for Cowroast Marina. These were effectively free boating holidays: all we had to do was to get to the start point with some bedding and provisions, and then cruise the customer's boat to the marina. One boat, I remember, suddenly refused to respond to the Morse control: it was stuck in forward as Jan was steering into a lock which I was operating. I remember leaping onto the roof of the boat, lifting the decking, and somehow finding the relevant lever on the gearbox to stop the otherwise inevitable smashing into the top gates. On another boat, or it might have been the same one, we woke up after a rainy night to find a hatch over our bed had leaked. Waking up in a wet bed is never pleasant!


NB Willow by the stop planks at Dutton Stop Lock on the Trent and Mersey

Why am I recounting this? Well, in a few days' time I shall, once again, be doing a boat move for someone else. Last "summer" we had the use of NB Willow for two very wet weeks in which we explored much of the western end of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Now the boat's owner wants to move it from the River Weaver down to Willowtree Marina (appropriately) on the Paddington Branch in London to be nearer where he works. I'm to take it on what could be the final leg of this journey, starting at Braunston tomorrow week. I have a maximum of five days, so if I don't manage something like ten hours each day, including the first day, I won't get as far as Willowtree Marina.

I'm likely to be doing this single-handed, which means I'm unlikely to miss any fellow bloggers on the way (I missed Keith and Jo on our return along the Leicester Section recently: I was inside our boat and emerged to see the back end of Hadar disappearing in the distance).

Boating with a purpose: now that's even better than a circular route on holiday!

Anderton to Northwich via Winsford (almost)

Saturday 19th July 2008

Jan's friend Jane from college days joined us today, driving over from Saughall. It seemed a long way on the map, but I was thinking in terms of boat distance. It actually took her not much more than half an hour. She came aboard just as we were about to descend the boat lift. This pleased her, as the other time she'd done the lift was in the trip boat where you're not allowed to leave your seat.

Caption please:


Another punning boat name.


We tied up just upstream of Town Bridge and sought sustenance in Northwich.


Then we headed up towards Vale Royal lock to see if we could get to Winsford. The salt works along the river add interest.


This one looks like something from a Bond film.


In order to make it back to Vale Royal for the last locking of the day we didn't quite make it as far as Winsford, winding perhaps a mile short. That leaves us something for another time.

The Weaver was busy, especially after Vale Royal lock disgorged its load.


So, back to Jalsea Marine, and Willow's home. Plenty of time to clean the boat and part-load the car. We would be sorry to hand it back to its owner: it had served us well and given us a great holiday. We couldn't blame Willow for the rain, after all!

Apologies again for the paucity of detail in the record of the last few days of our two week cruise. I'm looking forward to being reunited with the log