MoonlightHolly

October 1
Almost immediately after leaving our mooring, Lock No.1 of the Braunston flight was reached. This series of six locks raises the level of the canal almost 36 feet. We progressed through the first lock on our own but were joined by another boat for the remaining five. The entrance to the Braunston Tunnel was reached a few minutes later. This double width tunnel had, due to errors during construction, quite a few small bends and was 2,042 yards long. There is no control scheme for entering the tunnel and therefore boats coming from opposite directions can pass each other. We met four boats and to pass them reduced our speed to a mere crawl as there are only inches of clearance either side. When we saw the exit the light outside appeared to be yellow. We are not certain whether this was due to having spent thirty minutes in complete darkness or whether it was caused by diesel smoke coming out of the tunnel. It certainly was not due to the effects of sunlight!
Our next milestone was Norton Junction which is where the Grand Union Canal, Leicester Section, starts.
We headed north on this slightly narrower canal, made even narrower by heavy reed beds and overhanging branches. We stopped for lunch opposite Weltonfield Narrowboats Marina just in time to avoid a sudden downpour. In the background we could hear the constant roar of traffic on the M1 motorway. This noise gradually increased as we progressed towards the Watford Locks. It came as a great surprise to us that on looking through a hole in the hedge we found that we were alongside the car park of the Watford Gap Motorway Service station. The Watford flight is made up of two single locks at the bottom followed by a staircase of four locks and a single lock at the top. The staircase locks were slightly different from others that we have encountered in that the pounds were off to one side of the canal and the two paddles, one red and one white, had to be operated in strict sequence. We needn’t have worried too much about this as a British Waterways Lock Keeper was on hand to assist.
Our second tunnel of the day, the 1,528 yard long Crick Tunnel, was soon reached and being dead straight we could see right through it. No other boats were encountered.
We moored for the night on the northern side of Crick village.

October 2
The temperature had dropped during the night and this day was the first day that we could see our breath in front of us. Angela and Jason set off on foot along the towpath for early morning exercise and boarded the boat a mile or so further on. Today’s journey covered 12 miles and to Angela’s joy there was only one lock and that was in the final approach to Welford. The Welford Arm is a one and a half mile long canal linking the Grand Union Canal with the Welford and Sulby Reservoirs and reaches its terminus in a small basin. The Arm was only re-opened to navigation in 1969 having been derelict for some years. We were surprised at the number of boats moored along the Arm and in the basin.
For visitors to this village it is well worth taking a walk up the hill to see the 13th century church of St. Mary’s with its grand organ and interesting texts on tombstones.

October 3
We left Welford fairly early and rejoined the Grand Union Canal - Leicester Section. 12 miles of easy motoring brought us to the first of the Foxton Locks. This flight of two sets of five staircase locks usually create a delay in the passage as only one boat can go up or down at a time. Narrowboats were few and far between today, we only saw four all morning, and we were allowed to enter the top lock almost immediately. With the help of the BW Lock Keeper we completed the descent in 50 minutes. It was an interesting operation made even better by the conversations with the many gongoozlers. The Foxton Flight is the site of the old Inclined Plane Boat Lift, a system designed to bypass the Foxton Locks and thus greatly reduce the journey time.
The five and a half mile Market Harborough Arm leaves the Grand Union Canal at the bottom of the locks. The canal was narrow with a lot of reeds both at the side and in the water, floating islands of reeds (worse than we had encountered before on the Fossdyke Navigation) and many floating logs, all making for a hazardous trip. The recently renovated Market Harborough Basin was almost totally taken up by Canaltime hire boats and/or long term moorings. Visitors moorings were available alongside the canal.
In the evening we explored Market Harborough and made a note of where the useful places, such as the library, Sainsburys, Homebase, etc. were located.

October 4
Updated the website at the local library and did some shopping including buying a sheepskin coat for Jason for the winter. He looks very smart and seems to enjoy wearing it. After leaving Market Harborough around 14.00 we made Foxton Locks just in time to make the last ascent (the locks close at 17.00). Angela was assisted doing the locks by a small boy who said that he enjoyed being outside and being busy rather than sitting inside doing nothing. We liked his attitude and rewarded him, and ourselves, with an ice cream when we got to the top. We spent the night just north of the locks so that we could visit the Canal Museum the next day.

October 5
It was pretty misty when we woke up and in fact remained so for most of the day. We left Jason guarding the boat and went to visit the Canal Museum which was half way down the flight of locks. This was most interesting and as usual with this kind of museum, we learnt lots more interesting facts about the canals and their history. As mentioned earlier the need to open the red paddle before the white on this type of lock is very important. By opening the white paddle first it is possible to flood the complete installation. We were amused to see a rhyme to help people remember this; “Red before White, you’re bound to be Right. White before Red, you’re better off Dead” - I don’t think we will ever forget which paddle to open first now. We also visited the site of the Foxton Inclined Plane. This was designed to reduce the time for boats passing through the flight of locks from 70 minutes to 12. The system is much the same as that used by the Anderton Boat Lift except that instead of going up and down vertically, the boats travel along a slight incline. Two boats entered a caisson at the top (and two at the bottom), on a signal given by the operator a steam driven winch hauled steel cables attached to the caissons thus enabling them to move down (or up) the incline on rails. Only a small force was required as the weight of one caisson counterbalanced the other. The advantages of the Inclined Plane Boat Lift were that two boats could travel up and two down at the same time against only one boat at a time on the Foxton Lock system. The caissons were designed to accept double width boats whilst the locks would only accept the standard 6’ 10” wide narrowboat. Plus the time to go from the top to the bottom, and vice versa, was reduced from 70 minutes to 12. The Inclined Plane Lift operated efficiently but there was a bottleneck a few miles down the canal. The Watford Locks would only accept the regular narrowboat and the plans to modify these to accept double width boats did not materialize. The Foxton Inclined Plane system was abandoned after ten years of operation.
We then continued on our way, returning to Welford Basin and met up with Victoria and 2 year old Ivy May, daughter and granddaughter respectively of our friend Jenn. It was interesting to see Victoria again after so many years and we enjoyed meeting Ivy May for the first time. Unfortunately we did not meet Crow, Victoria’s partner, who was returning from the west of England where they had been on holiday, to Welford with their narrowboat “Eve of Spring”. Victoria had returned early in order to go back to work.

October 6
Misty again this morning and the Welford Arm, being lined with trees, was particularly magical in the morning light. After a quick trip to the one and only shop for some bread we were on our way back towards the Watford Locks once more.
Autumn is definitely in the air now and there are fewer and fewer boats around, most of them privately owned – in fact only six boats were seen all day. The trees are starting to change colour, hawthorn first and then the horse chestnut, but most of the others are still very green for this time of year. There are loads of berries everywhere, many more than usual, which would seem to indicate a hard winter. People on the canals are saying that it will probably be the coldest for 50 years – we will see. Our friend the heron was spotted again as well as lots of kingfishers and rabbits, otherwise nothing much of note and we moored at the top of the Watford Flight, practically underneath the M1, ready for the descent tomorrow.

October 7
After negotiating the Watford Locks we continued on our return to Norton Junction where we turned east on to the Grand Union Canal. In spite of its name, the milestones along this stretch all read GJCC because this used to be the Grand Junction Canal Company. In spite of there not being many boats around we did manage to share the next set of locks, the Buckby Flight, with a hire boat returning to Weedon. The hire company’s boats all have names such as Knotweed, Driftweed, Ragweed, etc., since they are based in Weedon.
The Buckby Flight consisted of seven double width locks, all extremely heavy and it was useful to share the work with another boat and, at one point, two British Waterways men who were inspecting the locks.
A nice surprise at the end of the flight was meeting Carole Sampson, with whom we have been in correspondence regarding the purchase of the First Mate Guides. These are excellent publications giving the location of doctors, dentists, vets, post offices, shops etc in all the major towns along the route.
The canal at this stage was as wide as a river with fields sloping gently down to the water. It was pretty noisy on this particular stretch with a main railway line and the M1 motorway close by but this just enforced our idea of the better way of life provided by the canals.
We moored a little way past Weedon and treated ourselves to Bangers and Mash at The Wheatsheaf, an old pub.

October 8
The weather was cloudy all day, the sun appearing only once very briefly, and in the afternoon and evening it rained. After leaving Weedon the canal was wide, clean and fairly twisty, with many fallen leaves. The route passed many boatyards and they were all busy with the normal weekend boat turn around. The main railway line still loomed close with 9-coach Virgin express trains passing every few minutes. Along the way we saw many old stone churches and chapels beautifully renovated as houses, old walls covered in creeper, now turning reds and oranges, and many old boats, some of them in operation but most of them moored.
After Gayton Junction the canal went through a deep tree line cutting leading to the 3057 yard long Blisworth tunnel (the third longest tunnel open to navigation in Britain – it took us 50 minutes to go through). Prior to its completion in 1805, boats arriving at either end had to be unloaded onto horse-drawn wagons, which were then pulled over the hill, and reloaded onto boats at the other end. The first boats going through the tunnel had to be legged through and the leggers’ huts can still be seen at either end of the tunnel.
Stoke Bruerne was at the other end of the tunnel, and this is perhaps the best example of a canal village in this country. Built mostly of local Blisworth stone, the houses flank the canal and the same family has run one of the pubs in the village since 1877. There are also many pretty thatched cottages in the village but unfortunately since it was pouring with rain by this time we didn’t explore any further.

October 9
The next day dawned bright and sunny and we walked back over the tunnel to the village of Blisworth, the walk taking only 30 minutes, twenty minutes less than via the tunnel. It was interesting to see the tunnel ventilation shafts and also an old windmill, sail-less and no longer functioning.
After taking on water by the lock we joined an old working boat going down the seven locks. There were a lot of spectators (gongoozlers) in Stoke Bruerne and many of them were interested in the process and helped open and close the gates. We were also helped half way down by a friend of the other boat’s owner and so were soon at the bottom. Here the countryside opened out to large ploughed fields and pretty hedgerows, still full of blackberries. We moored on the first straight part, just before an old stone bridge and had a barbecue, the first for a couple of weeks.

October 10
Today was positively HOT, so it was spent doing various chores around the boat, including blacking the side of the hull. The paint dried so quickly in the hot sun that we were able to motor a mile up the canal to turn round to enable the other side to be painted.

October 11
We topped up the fuel tank at the marina in Yardley Gobion and continued along the wide canal towards Milton Keynes. Stretches of the water were covered in carpets of leaves through which we ploughed leaving a clear path behind us. The great frequency of apples floating on the surface was solved when we saw them falling from waterside trees.
Milton Keynes was entered through a short stretch of derelict industrial properties, but this soon improved as we motored through miles of clean urban developments and vast parklands. We were surprised at the quantity of moorings available, including sites offered, free of charge, by local authorities.
We moored fairly close to The Shopping Centre and made a quick visit there in the evening.

October 12
We remained at Peartree Bridge all day and made a second visit to The Shopping Centre to collect mail, update the website and re-licence the boat for the next 12 months. It is convenient that a British Waterways office is in the centre of the city.

October 13
The overnight rain was still hanging around but cleared up by the time we left the moorings. Today seemed to be “pheasants day” as we saw hundreds of them on the towpath or in adjacent fields. We even saw six in somebody’s back garden.
As we passed over the highest part of the canal between Birmingham and London we heard of problems due to water shortage. In fact at one stage a British Waterways official rode up on his bicycle to advise us to take extra care as two boats were grounded in mid-canal a mile or so further along. By the time we arrived at that spot British Waterways had released more water into the canal and the problem had been solved. We moored with those two narrowboats and hoped that the water level would continue to improve during the night.

October 14
We were blessed with a wide canal through open agricultural land all day. The only exception to a peaceful cruise was the now unusual event of opening a swing bridge. Even here, we were helped by a local angler who, on seeing the boat arriving, jumped up and pushed the bridge open for us. Our mooring that evening was a little noisy due to the proximity of the main north/south railway line. The evening meal was taken in a beautiful 15th century thatched pub.

October 15
Happy Birthday Abby.
For most of the morning we accompanied narrowboat Dabchick, crewed by two adults and eight children, ranging in age from 9 to 12, who were on a birthday outing. By the time we had passed through nine sets of locks Angela had the children fully trained and feeling pretty confident about their return journey. We passed through Bulbourne where the British Waterways workshops, even today, a small team of craftsmen are manufacturing the traditional wooden lock gates. There are several interesting old canal buildings in this area. Passing Bulbourne the canal entered a long deep cutting and, as before, the water was covered with the golden leaves of autumn.
We passed through Cowroast, formerly known as Cow Rest which is where the drovers used to rest their cattle on the way from the Midlands down to London.
A sudden influx of clean water from a borehole at Northchurch lock improved the quality of the canal water from this point on.
Dabchick having turned round, we were now accompanied by narrowboat Snapdragon, crewed by a lively family of four. They had recently bought the boat in Stafford and were delivering it to Bishop’s Stortford. They moved fast and we were soon through Berkhamstead and to our evening mooring in Hemel Hempstead. We noted that many of the locks were padlocked between 18:00 hrs and 08:00 hrs in order to conserve water and to reduce vandalism.

October 16
Early next morning we had to negotiate the Winkwell Swing Bridge which happily was completely automated and thus no problem at all. Being a Sunday, we only held up one car. We were greatly impressed by the canal route through Hemel Hempstead which passed miles of open parks with well manicured paths. The town seemed to be beyond these open green areas. There were many gongoozlers at the locks some of whom assisted Angela with opening and closing gates.
We moored on the south side of the M25 which is the London orbital motorway, a spot slightly noisy due to the 24 hour traffic.

October 17
Very foggy in the morning with visibility of about 100 yards. The canal now runs together with the River Gade and there are several unannounced weirs which could present navigational problems if water levels were higher than normal. We only saw two other boats all morning as we progressed alongside smart houses, huge parks and even a golf course. The closer we got to London we noted an ever increasing number of houseboats and narrowboats permanently moored along the towpath. We moored in an area known as The Lakes, close to Rickmansworth. It is west of the canal and stretches for six miles alongside the canal. The lakes are flooded gravel pits which are now wetlands bird sanctuaries and areas for sailing/kayaking/windsurfing. We spent a pleasant couple of hours hiking the trails around the northern end.

October 18
On approaching our mooring at Stocker’s Lock the previous day it had been hard to miss a large cloud of smoke. On getting closer we noticed that it came from a group of farm buildings which were surrounded by what appeared to be hundreds of cars, trucks and other vehicles. It wasn’t until we spoke to the lock keeper that we learnt that it was a film shoot being carried out by Pinewood Studios. The film being shot was “Children of Men”, starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. The general public, ourselves included, were permitted to stroll around the sets and watch the action.

October 19
After a quick trip into Rickmansworth to update the website (only to find that the computers were ‘out-of-action’ all day as they were being up-graded!) we left the moorings and accompanied by another boat, who was returning, single handed, to his winter moorings, through the next two locks to Harefield. The canal guide was correct when it warned of strong crosscurrents below Lock 84. That is where the overflow from the top of the lock rejoins the canal at 90º and the current is swift enough for a short kayak slalom course.
The canal was wide with long straight stretches; soon we were in Uxbridge with tall office buildings and industrial complexes on either side. Again the number of permanently moored vessels was on the increase. Uxbridge welcomed us with a tremendous thunderstorm, which did not stop until long after we had moored below Cowley Lock.

October 20
The rain had stopped but everywhere was very wet. Our moorings were alongside a large public park so Jason got his early morning run, even though he returned covered in mud!
We set off in sunshine, which continued all day, and turned eastwards, at Bulls Bridge Junction, onto the Paddington Arm. The sun, or our proximity to London, had brought out more boats especially large double width sand and gravel barges, and we had to be ever watchful for oncoming traffic.
We moored in Perivale, close to a Sainsburys and B & Q.

October 21
The journey across the top of London was surprisingly pleasant and several well-known landscapes were recognized including Wormwood Scrubs High Security Prison. A long line of moored boats marked the approach to Little Venice. This was the first of our intended mooring spots, but there we no vacant locations. We proceeded into Paddington Basin, an almost half mile stretch of waterway surrounded by high-rise buildings. The wind howling between the office towers made it very easy to turn around and moor in the shelter of St Mary’s Hospital, even so the boat moved quite a bit during the night as the force of the wind was producing 12” waves, with whitecaps. It reminded us of sailing.

October 22
Angela took the day off to visit her mother near Brighton whilst Peter and Jason spent the morning investigating Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, one of the huge green parks in central London. A cyber café is on the books for the afternoon, if this is added to the website we were successful.

October 23
Sheila Nichols spent the day with us and we were able to show her, and ourselves, the Regent’s Canal from Little Venice along the north side of Regent’s Park and Zoo to the winding hole at Cumberland Basin. As time permitted the return trip was made along the canal to Wormwood Scrubs and back to the Paddington Arm.

October 24 - 25
Peter left to spend a couple of days with his mother in Shrewsbury. Angela and Jason explored Regent’s Park and Hyde Park in central London.

October 26
Carole King spent the day with us as we further explored the canals around central London.

October 27
We were interested to see that a narrowboat selling coal, firewood and diesel oil had arrived in the Little Venice basin. These boats offer essential services to other boaters and we purchased smokeless fuel (coal briquettes) for our stove.
At mid-day we were joined by David Hanington, his son Peter with his two children Jack and Martha and their cousin Jamie. Hamburgers and hot dogs were devoured as we showed them sections of the London canals.

October 28
Heavy rain during the night and early morning so it was just as well that our time was up in London. We motored the thirteen miles back to the junction with the main Grand Union Canal hardly seeing any other boats. At Bull’s Bridge we turned east towards the River Thames and moored just above Norwood Top Lock. As it happened the same coal narrowboat that had been in Little Venice had arrived at the same spot to service the vessels moored in this area.

October 29
A very grey day with rain threatening all day, though none fell. We dropped down through the Hanwell flight of locks with the canal becoming dirtier with each mile. We had to stop twice to clear the prop of plastic bags. Even British Waterways, who were trying to clean up this section of the canal had the same problem. The BW moorings in Brentford were closed but we were offered the private finger moorings on the off side. The only trouble with this was that we would not be able to go ashore from the moorings as a special key was required for the security gate. In the end we moored above the gauging locks that allowed Jason to stretch his legs on dry land. We were very impressed with the new development in and around the Brentford Basin.

October 30
Having confirmed with the Lock Keeper at Thames Lock that he would be allowing vessels onto the tidal River Thames at 11:00 hrs we left Brentford Basin, passed through the Gauging Locks and moored half a mile further along the canal immediately above Thames Lock. Sure enough at 11:00 hrs the lock gates were opened and Moonlight Holly and a small cabin cruiser were allowed onto the river. This control of the access onto the river is to ensure that there is sufficient depth of water in the river to enable boats to pass without problem.
The river was approximately 150 metres wide and a strong wind was blowing which created quite a chop as we motored up stream, past Kew Gardens and Syon House. There was no rush and it took an hour and a half to cover the five miles to the lock at Teddington, which is where the tidal section of the river ends. The passage through the lock was slightly delayed as we were passed in the last half-mile by four large cruisers, and there wasn’t room in the lock for them and us! We had arranged to meet Sue Hewer at the lock where she would join us for the next 24 hours. Upstream of Teddington the banks were full of pleasure boats, now moored for the winter, as well as many house boats, narrowboats and cruisers. Many of the houses along the banks were splendid as were their little boat houses, most of which had been modified far beyond the original scope.
The clocks were turned back last night and day light was starting to fade around 4:00 pm so we were very pleased, and surprised, to see that public moorings were available alongside Hampton Court Palace. It was on Angela’s “Wish List” to moor up in front of the HCP, and there we were within 150 metres of the Palace on a lovely quiet mooring, all to ourselves and the ghost of Henry VIII.

October 31
Sue had to leave early and we accompanied her, on foot through Bushy Park, part way back to her car.
We cast off and headed for Molesey Lock through which we soon passed. Chatting with the Lock Keeper we were informed that several of the locks upstream, including one at Old Windsor, would be closed for maintenance works, as of mid-night tonight, for a four month period! We checked our route and found that it would not be possible to pass through the affected locks before mid-night so had to make the sad decision to abandon the journey along the Thames to the Kennet & Avon Canal. We could have spent more time on the Thames, downstream of Windsor, but we might have ended up trapped for the winter on this section as within days several of the locks above Brentford were also to be closed for maintenance, thus cutting off our return to the canal system. We turned around, passed down through the Molesey Lock and headed back towards Teddington. Our timing, luckily, was perfect and we were allowed directly onto the tidal section of the river. It only took 50 minutes to reach Thames Lock and regain the Grand Union Canal where we moored up in the same location in Brentford Basin. We did change moorings later as the threats from Halloween revelers got too much.

Piczo