Macc is six months old today, and he started off by getting up quite early and then having a run around the playing field with a couple of Cocker Spaniels and a Labrador. As today was forecast to be hot, we got under way at about 8.30, with Adrian walking down to the lock while I brought the boat.
It turned out there was a boat coming up the lock, and as it’s quite a deep one but has no gate paddles it seemed to take ages. Down below, the canal-facing part of the Ovaltine building looks very ordinary — just modern blocks of flats.
The next lock, Home Park Lock, is very attractive with a nice little white cottage alongside. The owner was sat in her garden, working on a laptop.
We waited here a while because as we’d left Kings Langley Lock a boat had arrived above, and Adrian had said we’d wait for him at this one. And while that one takes an age to fill, this one had been sitting full and with its gates open. When he arrived, we realised he was the Lavender Boat — a mobile pump out.
Below this lock, the M25 crosses the canal on the very long Gade Valley Viaduct, which also goes over the river and the railway line.
So we were now inside the M25, which seems significant somehow. North Grove Lock also has a nice cottage alongside, with most of it being below what you can see from the lock side. There’s another storey underneath.
As we top to the Hunton Bridge Top Lock a boat was just coming out; it was a trip boat from below the locks. The cottage by this lock has a toll booth on one end.
The short pound between the two locks here was rather low, so Mr Lavender Boat ran some water down. Adrian went to sort the next lock out, and found a huge widebeam had just come up it, apparently leaving the gates open. Its crew stayed on the lock landing rather than coming to help open the gates of the lock they needed next. Lady Capel’s Lock was the last of the day, and we let the Lavender Boat go first as he was aiming for Rickmansworth today whereas we planned to stop (and we won’t get to Ricky until Sunday!). This area is very busy with boats, but I’d seen from the lock that there was only one boat moored in the wide section just below, and the Google maps photo has two there. So we pulled in ahead of the moored widebeam. The stern is quite a way out from the bank, but the bow is in and we have a nice view from the galley side doors.
Even better, behind the towpath hedge is a field of long grass with paths through it, and there’s no-one using it so Macc can have an undistracted scamper about.
We were in full sun when we got here, which was good for the solar, but as afternoon came round the adjacent tree has been giving us some welcome shade. It looks as though this latest heatwave is only going to get hotter over the next few days too.
3 miles, 6 locks. (81 miles, 104 locks)