Does Nessie migrate south for the winter? Do lock bollards really need painting?

We have paired up with Mick and Lesley on Lizzie for a few days, with the wide locks having two boats and crews makes life much easier. So this morning we set off from Kings Langley at about 0900 and were soon approaching lock 70.

Alongside the canal there is a fishing lake and rearing above the reeds was a rather worrying head. I just wonder what bait the local anglers use?

Here endeth civilisation, beyond the flyover and we are within the circuit of the M25.
At lock 72 C&RT were busy,

those bollards are looking really smart, but the effort didn't stop there.

I'm not sure what the original purpose of these pins was but they did not escape the attentions of the painting crew.

This is the splendid Grove Mill, now split up into flats, I dread to think what price they go for.
We have stopped in Cassiobury Park. Pleasant enough for a night's stay.
Pushing on again tomorrow although how far has yet to be decided.

Watch this space..............

As far as Kings Langley.

I must admit our choice of mooring yesterday was not one of our better decisions, rather a lot of scum on the water, obviously from the water processing plant, sounds better than sewerage farm.
After our normal Sunday breakfast fry up we were on our way. At Winkwell swing bridge we only caught two cars and a couple of chaps on bikes who were out for their Sunday exercise.
Below lock 61 the Bulbourne enters the canal, at the moment with quite a flow, and to make things that bit more interesting you now need to manoeuvre around

 a sunken push tug on the lock landing. All good fun, Jill managed to rescue me from the towpath a bit further down.

Somebody has managed to escape from Aylesbury despite the closure.

Apsley paper mill, one of the last users of canal transport by narrow boat although right at this moment I can't put my hands on the date coal deliveries ceased.

Still plenty of water coming down the cut. We were aiming for Kings Langley but the moorings above lock 70 were full, we have managed to get in opposite some flats just below the lock.
A stroll into the main street proved that The Saracen's Head is an hostelry worth visiting.

Watch this space.............

Odd things in Berko.

What a change, virtually windless this morning with the occasional glimpse of the sun. So after our morning bowl of poridge, porridge or porage, whichever you prefer, we set of through Berkhampstead.
I vaguely remember seeing "The Bargee" when it was first released, what stuck in my mind was a conversation that ran along the lines of:
Woman, "Hemel, that's an odd name, why are you called Hemel?"
Hemel,(Harry H. Corbett) "When I was born the boats were tied up in Hemel Hempstead so mum named me Hemel,"
Woman, "Lucky they weren't at Berkhampstead."
Funny what sticks in the mind, it still makes me smile.

Just a picture of a brightly painted bridge and my starboard lug 'ole, not one of Jill's best.
Obviously Berko is a place dedicated to multiculturalism,

but when did the Sioux move in? Alright, it's probably not a Sioux totem pole but they were the first tribe that sprang to mind.

An interesting building whose owners take an obvious pride in the canal connection, it just worried us a little,

what is lurking in the conservatory?
We have stopped below the fragrantly named Sewer Lock, just by the sewage works and the railway, who says the romance of the canals is dead?

Watch this space....................

We manage five miles and three locks.

Having wimped out of moving yesterday, well it was snowing and blowing the best part of a gale, we set off this morning into the teeth of a bitter wind.

We turned onto the main line by the dry dock at the top of the Marsworth flight and headed south,

passing the old Bulbourne workshops, part of which is now producing fancy ironwork.
It was quite pleasant through Tring cutting but by the time we had done Cowroast lock and the two Dudswell locks I was fed up with being blown all over the cut and Jill was looking decidedly cold so we called it a day.

That's the west coast main line so we're sitting here enjoying watching the trains go by.
Berkhampstead tomorrow.
Apologies to Adam on Briar Rose for getting his name wrong on Tuesday.

Watch this space..............

Hold very tight please, Tring Tring.**

The moorings at the current end of the Wendover Arm are hidden gems, in two days we have seen one other boat come up the arm, and they didn't stay.  A couple of long term moorers beyond the winding hole and a stables are our only neighbours. If you are passing Bulbourne Junction and have a bit of time to spare  it makes a pleasant change from crowded moorings on the main line.
Today we went down to Tring, a brisk twenty five minute walk takes you to the town centre.

The main street is not the most inspiring and, like most towns, crossing the road is a bit of a life and death choice.

St. Peter and St. Paul's church is most impressive but inside it's a bit bland apart from some intriguing corbels

A monster with the body of a dragon and the head of a woman. Isn't it usually the other way round?

The Green man of mythology?

A truly hideous Victorian font.
Their greatest claim to fame is that some of the forbears of George Washington were from Tring.

There are the usual range of shops in the town including an M&S food hall.
We can recommend the Prezzo Italian restaurant, good pizzas.
**Sorry couldn't resist using that line from "A Transport of Delight" by Flanders and Swann.
Also in the church I found a poster headed

Two junctions, the Wendover Arm and some reservoirs.

ERRATUM: If you have read the header to this blog you will know that I make no claim as to the accuracy of any "Facts" published, so I feel no shame in admitting to another blooper. Andy, narrowboat Briar Rose, was kind enough to point out that the plan to double the locks did come to fruition. On checking, Alan H. Faulkner, in his book The Grand Junction Canal, tells us that in 1835 the Soke Bruerne Locks were duplicated and subsequently twenty three locks northward from the summit at Tring were given a narrow lock alongside for the use of single narrow boats, mainly as a water saving device. They didn't last long, by the 1850's they were being filled in as the water supply problems had eased due to the new reservoir at Wilstone. Some were used as the basis for side ponds. Plans to add duplicate locks south of the summit were scuppered by disagreements with the local millers at Kings Langley.
Thanks also to Andy for pointing me in the direction of narrowboat Morgan Le Fay's blog for a photo' of the collapsed lock 12 on the Aylesbury Arm. Does not look good.
But back to today, not too early a start and onto the water point at Marsworth Junction.

 The old warehouse still stands but

the rest of the site is just a wasteland of rubble. When they build those luxury houses they're going to have really rocky gardens.

We passed the junction with the Aylesbury, now padlocked off so no trip to the land of the great white duck.

We climbed the seven locks, passing another of the Grand Junction Canal mile posts

that seem to chide us for our slow progress. On the way up we could hear the distinctive sound of a working boat coming down, it was Hadar making her way north. Just time to say  "Hi" to Jo and Kieth and we were on our way. What a beautiful sound their engine makes, it comes from a time when even a diesel engine had a soul.
At Bulbourne Junction our intention was to turn right onto The Wendover Arm so we were about ready to leave the lock when a boat arrived to wind at the junction, just as a boat started to emerge from the arm to come into the lock, we deserved a gold medal in narrow boat synchronised dancing.

We negotiated the chaos and made the awkward turn onto the arm.

Maybe one day Wendover will again be connected to the main system but for now there's only a mile and a half of quite narrow and shallow cut.

Heygates flour mill, there was once a windmill on the site, the modern mill now produces 76,000 tons of flour a year.

The present end of the line, despite general belief, you cannot walk the old towpath to Wendover, it is firmly fenced off here.
After a light lunch we set off for a stroll around the reservoirs that supply the summit of the G.U., Tringford, Marsworth and Startop's End.

Tringford pump house, it pumps the water from the reservoirs up to the summit level.
We walked along the lane from Little Tring Bridge until we came to:-

I have nothing to add, any comment would be superfluous.

It leads to the reservoirs.

Wigeon? The illustrations in my much thumbed Readers Digest Field Guide to the Birds of Britain (1981) are not overly clear on this one.

I know what this is, it's coltsfoot, another sign that, despite the weather, spring is here. Please note the colour of the sky in all the photo's, apart from the wind it has been a lovely day.
The Met. Office seems to think that it may, N.B. may, start to warm up next weekend.

Watch this space...........

We push on to Maffers.

We've had a most pleasant stay at Grove Lock, catching up with our old boating mates Chris and Jude. A few pints of Fuller's London Pride and a really good meal in The Grove, made for a most enjoyable weekend. Yesterday we watched the Boat Race, why the whole country avidly watches a race between two universities that very few have attended and with such partisanship is somewhat baffling, but unmissable!

The Grove and it's eponymous lock, there was no ice today but a really bitter wind was cutting across from the east. Just as we were leaving the top of the lock another boat hove into view below the lock so we gave them a quick shout and waited at Church Lock.

Below the lock is one of the double bridges that are a common sight along the G.U. They were originally built to allow the locks to be paired, an ambitious plan that never came to fruition.

Above the lock is the tiny church that gives it's name to the lock.

I must confess I failed to note which lock this engine house was beside. But it once housed a steam pump that pushed water back up the locks.
We pushed on up the locks with their names redolent of the English countryside we were traversing, Slapton, Horton, Ivinghoe and Seabrook. As we climbed we looked across to the Dunstable Downs which still have snow clinging to their flanks, I do wish it would warm up.
Mick, on Lizzie, the boat we were sharing locks with, then came up with the news, the Aylesbury Arm is shut, one of the walls at lock twelve has collapsed and the stoppage is listed on Waterscape with those three worrying letters, U.F.N. We had planned a trip down to Aylesbury, cross that off then.
We finally gave up at Marsworth, or Maffers as the working boatmen knew it, the cold having finally got the better of us.
Dare I suggest the Wendover Arm tomorrow?

Watch this space............