With a long journey to do today and more hot weather forecast we wanted to get away early. We were both up before the 6am alarm; I spent a few minutes dealing with the bird droppings all over the back of the boat before it got baked on, and we slipped away on electric stealth mode at about 6.20.
The first major feature we passed was Cowley Peachy Junction, where the Slough Arm goes off. We though were carrying straight on.
There’s a very distinctive bridge at Yiewsley.
The next section is quite a lot of nothing special, then suddenly you’re at Bull’s Bridge Junction, and making the turn onto the Paddington Arm.
We Stopped for water at the tap by the next bridge, which is in Southall. There are moorings here, but no-one ever seems to use them. I had breakfast while the tank filled, and Adrian took Macc for a walk. Just through the bridge is a lighthouse, for some reason.
At some point, not exactly sure where, we passed a huge hopper filled with reels of big cables. Then a bit further along there’s a towpath diversion onto some floating pontoons, where the cables were being fed down a hole in the towpath.
We’d had info from my friend James about the fallen tree, the upshot of which seemed to be that it’s been partially dealt with. We approached slowly and there was room to get through, although the widebeam moored just beyond it didn’t make things easy.
Just before the North Circular there’s a big development called Grand Union which has a boat up on its piazza, as a coffee shop. I was just wondering if it was actually floating in some water when I saw someone walking round it, so I guess it’s not — although photos show there might sometimes be a little bit of water there.
It’s always fun going over roads, and the North Circular is a particularly enjoyable one because it’s so awful down there! The relative heights of the water, the towpath, and the fence mean that I doubt any drivers can actually see boats as they go over.
Eventually things begin to get more interesting, with the Goldfinger’s brutalist Trellick Tower, and then the Westway sticking out over the canal. Now that the speed limit up there is 30mph, it seems as though the traffic is going really slowly.
Eventually we were going through the narrows and into Little Venice, where a trip boat was just waiting to set off.
The Regent’s Canal heads off to the left, but we were heading right to the Paddington Arm. We had an electric GoBoat ahead of us and another behind, and the scoop boat clearing duckweed was coming towards us. It then turned, drained the water from the scoop and dumped the weed in a boat.
We turned the corner at by St Mary’s Hospital and headed for the pontoons. It’s pretty windy down here most of the time, and just as I turned in it seemed to be windier, so we were blown sideways down the arm a bit. However we got into our booked mooring on the towpath side and tied up. The placement of rings isn’t ideal, so we’ve had to reverse moor.
The whole journey had taken six hours (although that did include the water stop) which is a lot for us these days. And it was really hot by now too. There are not great facilities for Macc either, although we have found a line of trees behind some of the buildings, and there’s some grassy areas further up the arm. One side of the boat has been in the sun so we’ve had everything closed up, but the breeze has been welcome from the towpath side. We’re also right outside M&S Food, and have already been there twice! This afternoon we had a lovely visit from Annie, one of my former colleagues who took redundancy the same time I did. We’ve discovered that neither of us is missing the shifts, particularly the nights!
We seem to have done another trip where the lock count exceeded the number of miles, even with today’s long journey. It’s supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow, and then cooler again on Sunday; a drop in temperature would be really welcome.
And the latest podcast episode is out. This one is about Hatton Locks, and you can listen to it here.
18 miles, 0 locks. (112 miles, 119 locks)