The June Rose: Wednesday 12 October 2016

Not too far to go today. We pushed off at 9am. I can’t believe that another season is over. The waterways around here feel very familiar now and it only feels like last week that we were heading towards London from the River Lee.

There seem to be a few more boats moving around but again we had all the locks to ourselves. We did pass one boat coming in the opposite direction at Cheshunt Lock – they moor at Roydon where we are heading for!

At Pickets Lock – now known as Alfie’s Lock – I think he still lives in the lock house, there was a guy washing his plastic boat at the water point in the lock so we waited whilst he pulled his boat out and helped us do the lock. We also saw a CRT guy on his pushbike who said he was taking boat numbers and checking licences etc – he said it was the third time he had seen us this morning!

There are lots of people living on boats around here but unfortunately many of them seem to takeover the surrounding ground, under bridges or on the towpath and fill it up with all sorts of rubbish making it a less desirable place for the rest of us.

Through Carthagena Lock and we saw Jane and Vince – Vince is helping Jane fit her widebeam out so we went on board and had a look to see how she is getting on – nice job Jane – and Vince! We bumped into Joanne too as we were leaving and expressed our interest once more at taking a permanent mooring there when or if one becomes available.

Through Fieldes Weir Lock and turned right onto the River Stort. Through Lower Lock and left into Roydon. We left here at the end of June last summer – very quickly we bumped into a few old faces who seemed pleased to see us!

I have yet to work out exactly how many miles and locks we did this year but will soon and add a post to let you know.

Thank you for continuing to follow the blog – it makes it worthwhile.

….Until the next time x