Well, The Grove Ornamental Bridge was indeed illuminated last night, although the tree alongside wasn’t.
Another thing I discovered while walking with Macc yesterday evening, was that a tree has come down at some point in the past couple of months just round the corner. It’s beside the next bridge, but didn’t fall across the canal it fell the other way — into the grounds of the water works, where they also have a solar farm. The damage was significant, with several rows of mangled solar panels.
This morning was very bright and sunny, and Macc enjoyed having a run in the field. We set off about 8.30, with Adrian walking round to the lock while I brought the boat.
Lady Capel’s Lock was empty, and so was the bottom one of the two at Hunton Bridge. As we rose, we saw a widebeam coming out of the top lock, and they left a gate for us. The pound in between was 15 or 18 inches down, but we got across it without the sort of problems we had yesterday. There are three cottages by the lock, one called Lock Cottage, one called Canal Cottage, and one that appears to be called Toll Booth — which is what it used to be.
North Grove Lock was full with the top gates open, so needed setting before we could go in. As we came up a boat appeared, with was good timing.
The lady from the boat said they’d thought this lock would be in their favour anyway, because they’d just swapped with a widebeam at the next lock, Home Park Lock. En route to that lock we went under the M25 viaduct; we’re finally outside the M25 again!
Home Park Lock was indeed against us, and when we got to Kings Langley Lock the widebeam was waiting to go up while a boat came down. On board the widebeam was a lady who was single handing, so we worked the lock for her. It’s quite a deep one, it has no gate paddles, and there’s a massive leak from the bottom gates, so it all takes a while. She also told us she was planning to do the next two locks and then stop — which had also been our plan. But rather than follow her up the Nash Mills Locks, we decided that if there was a space at Kings Langley we’d stop there instead. It’s better for Macc anyway, because there’s a recreation ground next to the canal. Once we were in the lock, Adrian noticed that there was a pair of boats across the canal above, so he opened one paddle and went to pull them back in. Fortunately their stern rope still had its stake, so he could poke it back into the ground. Once we were up enough, I climbed up onto the lock side and got the other paddle open.
There was loads of space at Kings Langley so we moored in pretty much the same spot as when we came down. We fancied lunch out, so walked into the village and went to a deli for a panini. On the way back we went to the rec to give Macc some exercise. Stopping a little bit early means we have slightly more to do tomorrow, but none of these were long days anyway.
3 miles, 6 locks. (121 miles, 67 locks)