There was rain in the night, which neither of us remembered being forecast, and it was pretty damp and gloomy when I took Macc for his walk. We did a bit of training in an effort to get him to ignore other dogs, and then a dog which couldn’t ignore him came bounding up so the two of them had a few minutes of off-lead chasing each other. We got under way at about 8.30 under rather grey skies.
The first lock of the day was Nash Mills Bottom Lock, which has to be left empty so was ready for us. A road goes over the tail of the lock.
Between the two locks are all the flats built on the former mill site.
The top lock doesn’t have to be left empty, so was full. After that we did the sharp turn and headed into Apsley, past the marina, and under the curly bridge.
A widebeam had just come out of the bottom Apsley Lock, and all three were in our favour. Then at Boxmoor Lock there was a boat to come down so Adrian helped him. As we were about to leave the lock a boat moored above indicated they were just about to set off, so we could leave the gate for them. Fishery Lock was full even though it’s supposed to be left empty, and a boat was going up Boxmoor Top Lock. This was one of several locks today that had a top paddle out of action; with water also pouring out of the bottom gates, these ones took a while to fill. Winkwell Bottom Lock was empty, though, and then Adrian took the key and swung the bridge, holding up a few cars in the process.
We’d been hoping to moor on the official moorings just through the bridge, but the pound was well down and we couldn’t even get the bow close to the bank let alone the stern. We couldn’t even have run some water through, but there’s always the fear that the level will drop again and then we’d be sitting on the bottom. So we decided to go up the next lock. As it happened, a huge widebeam was coming down, and there was a fairly heavy but short shower at the same time.
There was also a narrowboat waiting to come down, so we swapped with him. We tried mooring in that pound too, but again the levels were down. So we also went up Winkwell Top Lock, and after failing to get in at one spot have moored in pretty much the same place we did on the way down.
At least this pound has a supply of water, as the sewage works a bit further along discharges into the canal before the next lock. Today’s journey has been a bit longer than planned, both because we stopped early yesterday and then had to do a couple of extra locks before we could moor. We’ve done today what we did over three days on the way down!
5 miles, 11 locks. (126 miles, 78 locks)