Well, what a day!

That was Saturday, a day of many parts

The three Horseshoes pub at 8 o’clock this morning … WOW!

 … and looking the ‘other’ way towards the first lock of the day, cold, frosty, sun making an appearance, it looked like the start of a good day.

The forecast was for wintery showers first thing clearing by 9am, so we were waiting for the off.  Just before 9 we'd seen no showers and assumed that the weather had already passed through so we pulled pins and set off



By 20 past 9 the snow started, it came down quite heavy and soon there was a covering over everything

10:30 and it was still snowing as we reached Bourne End Locks but the sun was doing its best to shine through

… 11 o’clock and the snow stopped and the sky started to clear

If you need a phone box, there’s one here as we approach 












… Berkhamsted

… with its wharf and totem pole

… and then came the ice, not too bad, just a bit slushy!

It was midday by now and our original plan was to moor here overnight and carry on in the morning, but it was such a lovely day now and we were enjoying ourselves so we decided to continue on our way.

Gas Lock 1 and we found gold and a few tree trunks were quickly deposited into the front cratch!

At Northchurch Lock with its disused water pumping building and a quick look inside

We met the ice again in the pound (water between two locks) above Northchurch

… a bit more substantial than earlier too.

The canal has been rather shallow in many places today (our draught is only 24”) and it was shallow here too and we squeezed past this tree

Alpacas near the railway line as we approach Dudswell Locks

I’d been in touch with Jaq about the mooring above Cowroast Lock and she informed me that the towpath there was like a mud bath but there were good moorings below the lock with a hard towpath.  That will do for us although we needed to go up the lock for water before mooring up.  

There was a line of moored boats below the lock and we couldn’t see what the situation at the lock was, one gate was open but there appeared to be either two narrowboats in there or a wide beam.  There certainly wasn’t enough room on the canal for the moored boats plus our own wide beam and another coming down to pass each other, so we pulled over and waited for them to pass.

We ascended the lock and filled up the water tank and were lucky because this lock would be shut and locked down at 4pm and we'd arrived at 3:30.  

It was 4:30 when we moored up below Cowroast Lock; it had been a long, long day; lunch had been a couple of shortcake biscuits on the go and we were both ready for a cup of tea before putting up the canopy and preparing a hot meal.

Although we were really tired we had had a really good days cruising!