There was rain in the night and it was still pretty miserable this morning, although Macc and I got our early walk without getting wet. He’d started the day by being sick which meant all his bedding needed to go in the wash; a piece of plastic he’d swallowed from goodness-knows-where seemed to be to blame. We delayed our departure slightly while a shower went through, and then set off about 9.30 under leaden skies.
The Tring Summit is mostly in a cutting, and once there it was difficult to know whether it was actually raining or whether the droplets were just coming off the trees. However, there was a lot of water coming down a drainage gulley by Tring Station Bridge.
There were lots of boats moored at Bulbourne, but the converted waterways yard always looks nice.
As we got to the Marsworth Locks, we could see some lock keepers and that the bottom gates of the top lock were open. We pulled in to the lock landing by the junction of the Wendover Arm where there’s a very specific mile post.
The boat that was on its way up was soon at the summit level, and we could go in to the top lock.
There was a brief but heavy shower at around this time, but there were also signs of improvement in the weather. The second lock had been left open for us, and then one or other of the volunteer lockies went ahead to set the next lock. And there seemed to be more and more of them appearing as we went down. It meant we fairly flew down the six locks, as the sun came out.
We were aiming to moor in the pound by the reservoirs, and the lockies said there were plenty of spaces. There were, but we stopped in the first one which was nice and sunny, as you can’t guarantee that the other gals will be better! We were all moored up less than an hour after going into the top lock.
After lunch we took Macc for a walk, and discovered that there’s a memorial to Clive Porter, the CRT licence checker who was murdered on the Aylesbury Arm in 2021, just before we went through there. You may recall we both gave evidence at the trial of his killed. There’s a bench, a tree, and a plaque.
We walked down to the junction and past the staircase locks on the Aylesbury Arm, and then to the recreation ground, where we stood on opposite sides of a big patch of wild flowers, and got Macc to run circles round it! We returned by crossing fields of cows and horsed, then the road, and then up onto the reservoir embankment. The Startopsend reservoir looks rather low, but the Marsworth one which is slightly higher is fuller.
This afternoon I have put together and scheduled another podcast. It’s been sunny pretty much all afternoon, so we’ve had some decent solar.
3 miles, 6 locks. (134 miles, 97 locks)