Saturday 6 February 2016

Cruising south

It was dull and humid yesterday morning as I set off to set the locks for our cruise, three locks and about 3.5 miles.  As we reach the outskirts of London there are long, long lines of moored boats to pass at tick-over speed.
 Denham Deep Lock is the first of the day and I arrive to an empty lock which needs to be filled before we can use it.
 The River Colne passes underneath the Grand Union Canal here and looks to have been dredged since we passed here last.
 Here she comes, into the second lock at Uxbridge.
I arrived at Cowley Lock long before George brought Still Rockin’ down and I was surprised to see that the Cafe/Bistro is up for sale by auction.  All the boating services are based here and when George eventually arrived we emptied and filled all the appropriate tanks and got rid of our rubbish.  

I’d seen a group of people on the towpath by the bridge (which takes the towpath from one side of the canal to the other (a turnover bridge)) as I was walking down, they looked to me like local ‘planners’.  When they came onto the wharf I asked what they were planning. They are looking at making the crossing of the very busy road from one side of the towpath to the other much safer for pedestrians.  I was pleased to hear that because during the summer the towpath is a pleasant and busy place for walkers and for boaters especially, as we need to cross the road again to reach the refuse disposal area which has to be unlocked whilst standing on the road.  Let’s hope they come up with a viable, safe crossing for all.
 This is the ‘Floating Classroom’ electric boat 
 … which today carried lots of noisy, enthusiastic youngsters who had a cookery lesson during their trip out today
The cruise took four hours and we were glad to reach our destination near Packet Boat Lane.  This’ll do us for a few days.

8 comments:

Fran said...

Your boat is beautiful and I have just spent a lovely hour looking through the posts about the building of it. Will come back to see some moe tomorrow xxx

Mike Todd said...

Hope you enjoy your stay at Packet Boat . Our boat (Take Five) is still in the marina - we come back up later next week for a week's trip into London. Our annual service is to be done on Tuesday and well as repair to the alternator which failed us on Christmas Day. Still keeping fingers crossed that all will be well when we return.

Vallypee said...

What fun to have lessons on a boat! It sounds as if you had a very nice, gentle cruise. By the way, there are some rather nice Dutch barges in that last photo!

Carol said...

Thank you Fran. x

Carol said...

We like mooring here Mike, it’s fairly quiet and not a lot of footfall on the towpath although during the week the builders make themselves known at times! Hope all is well when you return to ‘Take Five'

Carol said...

Hi Vallypee, The green one is particularly nice, there are quite a few dutch barges down this end of the Grand Union Canal. The classroom boat went past us last night in the dark with a birthday party of youngsters aboard having great fun. x

Caroline and Martin said...

Hi Carol and George, not a comment about your blog but two questions please about your boat fit out and in particular where you acquired the fireside tiles, and how did you find Kinver canopies? what sort of material did you go for. We have no experience of modern fabrics etc, we have a covered bow area on our new build so are looking for similar to yours but as a narrow version. we are also undecided about a rear cover, but prob will go for one, prob a pram type so we can fold it down/away when not needed, we'll be having a square stern with seating across the back and along both sides, so want the area to work well. Thank you in advance any info appreciated. Caroline

Carol said...

Hi Caroline, Follow this link for the tiles - http://www.fireplace-tiles.com/tile_set_running - We would recommend AJ Canopies (http://www.ajcanopies.co.uk) for a narrowboat, they’re based at Braunston. . Kathy and Frazer are lovely people, extremely helpful and efficient, a pleasure to do business with. They will show you the different fabrics and advise you on the best one for your use.
We only went with Kinver because AJ don’t make them for wide beams, although we’re pleased with our covers we found their customer services not up to scratch. Obviously you need to make your own decisions on who you go for. Good luck with your build we’re following your blog. Carol.