We’ve reached a milestone

At Abbots Langley we passed under the M25 motorway. It’s a milestone in our journey to and through London.

Interestingly, the number of moored boats increased almost immediately, and so did the variety. We’re used to the usual wide-beam or narrowboat and the occasional river cruiser. But as soon as we went under the M25 we started seeing home-made craft, floating houses, even one boat with a car welded onto its stern. Sadly, there are also now many more dilapidated and sunk boats, more rubbish on the side of the path, and more boats rafted up.

However, the countryside is achingly beautiful, with the canal as wide as a river at times, steep wooded banks, watermills and warehouses. Between Croxley Green and Denham the canal is part of a complicated water system, where rivers, gravel pits , nature reserves and the canal all join together and run parallel to each other for miles.  

Footpaths and circular walks abound in this area, and the tow path is busy with joggers, dog walkers, and people using the path to go to work and school.

Denham Deep lock, (Lock 87) is 11ft 1” deep and is the deepest lock on the Grand Union. The sill of that lock is higher than our boat! It’s also the penultimate lock before getting into London proper. The pound after that is the longest pound without locks on the GU. After weeks of lock work, we were looking forward to 14 miles of lock-free cruising.

We were a bit anxious about getting into London proper, as we’ve been getting some mixed messages about how easy, or difficult, it will be to find mooring places. Some pretty seasoned boaters have also advised us of no-go areas, and places where it’s “uncomfortable” to stay overnight.  As we don’t know London from a boating perspective, it was difficult to work out where these areas are, and how we could ensure that we’d not arrive there at a time when we wanted to stop for the night.

We therefore decided to book CRT pre-bookable visitor moorings. It took a weight off our shoulders and we’re now excited to enter the Big Smoke.

However – a gripe about the CRT website and the instructions. Information on and instructions to the mooring sites give no indication of where in London they are. Why can they not use bridge numbers on their booking site and when sending mooring instructions? A postal address really is of no use to us when arriving by boat.