Wednesday 22 April 2015

Left our nice spot in Cheshunt at 8.20am, it was a bit breezy today and quite cold.  We will get to Roydon Mill Marina today where we are going to stay for three weeks whilst we are in Portugal and have a few land life things to deal with!  Everyone tells us that the Stort Navigation is one of the prettiest rivers in the country.  Unfortunately the Marina is not very far into the Stort so we will have to save seeing the rest of it for another day.  The stretch of river to the Marina was lovely passing through Broxbourne and Nazing.  Seven more locks, Cheshunt, Aquaduct, Carthagena, Dobb’s Weir, Feilde’s Weir, Lower Lock and the one into the Marina.  We are really back in the countryside here.  Made good time arriving at the Marina at 12.30pm – it’s huge but has everything we need and it feels like a safe place.

Mission accomplished!!  167 miles and 132 locks.  We have 882.2 cruising hours on the clock and we did it in three weeks with two of the weekends spent in one place.  I counted a total of 36 floating footballs since we left Ely!

Virtually every day when I am opening a lock a man says to me why is it always the women doing the hard work and the men sitting on the boat - so I came up with an answer – women don’t want to crash the boat because if a woman crashes the boat she did something wrong, if a man crashes the boat it’s not his fault! – my theory was proved today - coming into Dobb’s Weir lock (through one gate) I managed to hit the wall and the closed gate – boy was I in trouble.....of course somebody else hasn’t done that in our 132 locks has he!!!

Over the next three weeks I will only post an update if we have been for a chug.

I was not quite early enough for the sunrise but it still looked good at 6am!

Aquaduct Lock - but it doesn't seem to be going over anything!

Lovely gardens.

Our friend's (Jo and Alan) boat at Carthagena Lock hiding over the other side you can just see the name Wuthering Whites!

 

 

So nice to be back in the countryside.

Approaching Dobb's Weir lock - that's the wall I hit on the right!

This is where the Lee and the Stort divide.

Coming up to our last lock before the one into the Marina.

The rolling hills of Roydon.

Entering the Marina - it's a huge lake.

Steve has to get the boat from over there into this gap and the wind is blowing!

Well done - nearly there - just as well both neighbours were not on board as we made contact with both!!

 

Walking into Roydon Village.

A view from the bridge - we are over there somewhere!

To give you an idea of how big this place is!