Where's the Ducks ?

On Tuesday morning we pulled pins at 07.55 and headed down towards Marsworth junction this is where the Aylesbury arm joins the Grand Union canal. we wanted to do this arm last year but due to a lock collapsing and the canal being closed for many months we were unable to do so. Before going down the arm we took on water and got rid of waste as we had been told that there was a lot of building work going on at the end of the arm and we were not sure what services would be available there.After filling and dumping we then reversed back to the junction and the first 2 locks which are staircase locks.
OOPS !! We have now gone from double locks to single locks and Carolyn is still keen to steer the boat. When she did double locks i opened both gates for her so she had over a 14 foot gap to steer through, but now on single locks that gap has been halved . Luckily for Inca she caught the bricks with the rubbing strake ,so a bit of paint will put things right. As for the lock entrance…Oh dear !! . But i must admit it is not a very good bit of brickwork and looked like it had been recently repaired,and as you can see the mortar looks green.   PS No i didn't shout at Carolyn when she did this ……….much .
  With me back on the tiller where i belong and Carolyn back doing what she does best we came to some very low pounds between the locks. On a couple of them Carolyn had to let water down from the locks behind us.
For some reason this boat wanted to turn around above one of the locks. The only trouble being that his boat was longer than the canal was wide and he became a bit wedged. Luckily Carolyn was on hand to free them up.
We passed this massive factory just before Aylesbury and it turned out that it is the largest dairy in the world and was only completed earlier this year.The Arla Dairy can produce 1.5 million bottles of milk a day and will be supplied by 900 farmers.It has the potential to process 240,000 litres of milk per hour and one billion litres a year. And the reason you cant see it very well is that it is camouflaged . There was a dairy in Totnes that closed a few years ago and a lot of local people lost their jobs but you can see that it could never have competed with a set up like this.
This is lock 12 on The Aylesbury arm and its the lock that collapsed last year. This is the newest lock we have ever been through , but Carolyn did comment that the “bloody gates are a bit heavy and not well balanced”
The closer you get to Aylesbury and the canal gets narrower and narrower . With long stretches of single canal its a good job we didn't meet any boats coming the other way.
After six and a half hours we finally make it to the end of the Aylesbury arm and can not believe that we are the only ones here. There are brand new empty pontoons in the basin , but there is no signage to say whether we can use them or not. We are moored next to Waitrose so we will stock up and try and find out if we can stay here or not. It would be a great place to stop as we are right next to the new theatre and the main Town is just across the road and we all know how much Carolyn needs her retail therapy.
So far we have not seen any Aylesbury ducks so we will keep our eyes open for them, Although I'm not sure that you see them in the wild . I have heard that they are very tasty and make an excellent duck roast .

                                                                              Happy Days

Firkum Hall

 

Still up the Wendover arm and we still can’t believe how quiet it is. We have seen a few boats come up to the end and turn and one or two of them have stopped the night, but mostly we have had it all to ourselves.

But all good things must come to an end and its time to move on again. On Monday morning after a superb weekend we pulled pins at 10.00 and could see that the level was down on the arm. As we passed the pumping station two pumps were pumping flat out .

It has certainly been a good year for wild fruit and look at this lot. Only trouble is that they were in someone's garden. But we have done very well with Blackberries and Carolyn is now making her second batch of jam. With the crab apples coming on it will soon be time to start gathering them for some of Carolyn's delicious Crab Apple jelly.

Carolyn has decided she wants more practice in handling the boat . This morning she did 5 locks down on the Marsworth flight and didn't she do well , not a scratch on Inca.

With the temperature well into the twenties and after 3 hours of travelling we picked up this mooring next to the Marsworth reservoir.

After mooring we decided to take Molly and Hamish out for a walk and it wasn't long before we passed this house. Carolyn had a good laugh , but i just didn't get it. I seem to remember passing a boat with a similar name not long ago and i didn't get that either.

How do you pass a village pub on a hot day ? The answer is you can’t its impossible, especially when you have nothing better to do.

We will spend the night here and then an early start tomorrow morning as we have 15 locks and about 6 hours of cruising to get to our next destination. More about that in our next post.

 

                                                                Happy Days

Finders Keepers

 

We pulled pins from our mooring in Berkhamsted on Thursday morning after a couple of days there. We both like the Town as it has so much to offer ,with good shopping and a very friendly atmosphere. The only downside is that the moorings are within 100 yards of the main Railway line,and with trains every couple of minutes it does tend to get on your nerves. I would imagine if you were here long enough you would become oblivious to them. What made it worse was that they were carrying out track repairs throughout the night and the Trains sounded their horns as they passed through all night long.

This is becoming a familiar sight on our travels. They are prized for their wool and apparently their meat tastes very good , although i have never seen Alpaca steaks in Tesco.

 

Nearly at Tring summit and we pass this lovely old canal cottage.

I guess this boat has some connection with Cornwall , as they use silly words like Dreckly down there.

Yet again we just couldn't pass the entrance to The Wendover arm without turning into it. And Yet again we couldn't get around the corner next to the Flour factory. The level in the canal was so low and even though the pumps were running we had to do several shunts forwards and backwards to get around.

Yet again we are so lucky to pick up this mooring. We absolutely love it here. It is so peaceful and tranquil and it has to be one of our favourite places we have discovered on our journeys.

Finders Keepers ….    This is just a few items that we have found on our travels in the past few months. It seems people just leave things on the towpath for us to pick up. I must admit that it is mostly Carolyn that spots it. She has an uncanny knack of finding things including money. She is always picking up coins in the streets and sometimes its even paper money. I just wish she could be luckier with the National Lottery.

With good weather forecast for the weekend we will stop here and chill until Monday and then continue on our journey to who knows where next …

Mr Thrifty

 

Common sense prevails

It was good to read nb Freespirits blog and find out that the problems on The Ashby Canal have been resolved. It appears that the local fishing club who resent the yearly canal Rally had claimed it affected their right to fish and complained to Natural England that boats were causing damage to the reed beds and wild life habitats on the canal. After a meeting with Canal and River Trust and Natural England it was agreed to put 200 meters of temporary nico-spanning to protect the reed beds during the rally. I would imagine that the Anglers are still not happy , but then when are they ever happy with boaters.

We pulled pins on Tuesday at 09.15 in beautiful sunshine and soon passed this Heron soaking up some rays.

The maintenance on a lot of the infrastructure on the canal system is certainly lacking and this lock is a good example. The lock leaks so badly that every time you leave the lock it has to be left with a paddle up so the lock is always empty when not in use.

Yet again poor maintenance. This is the Elsan Disposal point below Berkhamsted. There has been no water supply for a long time according to a local boater who was on the water point, and you wouldn't believe what it looks like around the other side where you empty your cassette. But with Elsan points so far apart you have no choice but to use it. I have sent an e-mail of complaint to Canal and River Trust , so lets see what happens now.

With inches to spare we just made it on to this mooring opposite the park in Berkhamsted.

After mooring it was straight into the Town and Carolyn's lunch out… Oops that look again….  “What's this !! you promised me a lovely restaurant” says Carolyn . When you get an 8oz Sirloin steak with chips ,peas ,tomatoes , Mushrooms and a pint for just over 8 quid and your middle name is Mr Thrifty you just can’t go wrong, and I'm pleased to say this visit to Wetherspoons was a lot better than the last one.

With Molly and Hamish booked in for some treatment at the local vets on Wednesday we will spend another day here and then on Thursday move up to Tring summit and start locking down hill again after coming up 45 locks from London .

 

                                                                                 Happy Days

A few stats on a wet day

 

We ended up not moving on Sunday and decided to have a bit of a lazy day. We then woke on Monday morning to heavy rain and as Carolyn didn't fancy getting wet we decided to have another day on our mooring here below Berkhamsted.

With rain today and it being to wet to travel i finished the installation of our Intruder alarm , we should now be safe from Burglar Bill.

That's me working hard on the Blog.

I last checked our Stats on the 20th of June and since then we have certainly done some travelling. We have done 462 miles and gone through 318 locks in just under two and a half months. So you can not say that we are not continuous cruisers. We have gone from Llangollen to the Anderton boat lift , then done the whole length of the river Weaver. It was then back down the Trent and Mersey and up the Macclesfield canal to the Peak Forest canal and to the end at Bugsworth Basin. From there it was down to London via Shardlow and Leicester on the River Soar. And now we are heading North again and i think its about time we started to slow down a bit. From the day we started our time aboard we have now covered 1623 miles and gone through 1062 locks, I have done 9 locks and Carolyn has done 1053. We have filled 241 toilet cassettes and i have emptied every single one. Our Beta 43hp engine has now run for a total of 1699 hours , it was on 270 hours when we bought it so we have clocked up 1429 hours. As always the Solar panels are performing brilliantly at this time of year and supplying us with all our electrical needs when we don't move which saves us running the engine or Generator.

On the blog we have now posted 179 blogs and are averaging 688 page views a week according to the blog Stats over the last month. We are also on UK Waterways Ranking Site which is a red and black button on the top right hand side of the blog page and our position at the moment is 44 , We have been as high as 33 but I'm not sure how it works because the page views/hits on there are totally different to the figures on the blog stats .

Tomorrow as long as the weather is good we will move up the six locks to Berkhamsted. Carolyn has told me that i have to take her out for a lovely meal at a good Restaurant, so when we get there the first job will be to find a Fish and Chip shop …

 

                                                                         Happy Days