Narrowboat Tacet

Silent Movement - Our gap year travelling the inland waterways



Thursday 28 March 2013

Shivering into Town

Yesterday we shivered and shook our way through the back streets waters into Paddington Basin.
I'll take you on a quick photo tour of our journey.......
Leaving the lovely quiet moorings at Denham, at the bottom of the lock, there is a boatyard business, with tea rooms and gardens at the lock cottage.  The boats are all moored on line, there are no workshops, dry or wet docks.  But they have a floating dry dock and a boat being worked on inside the bigger barge style hull. It would be good to watch the process of sinking the 'dock' and getting the narrow boats in and out.

There were only 3 locks to work, all on the Grand Union down to Cowley, then the junction with the Slough Arm heading into, well, Slough!  But not for us this time, we went on to Bull's Bridge and turned onto the Paddington Arm.
Bull's Bridge Wharf is looking sad and neglected, though there were workmen there clearing the ground, so maybe plans are underway to develop the site in some way.
Over the North Circular Aqueduct, so many people rushing about, or sitting in traffic jams, along noisy dirty streets...........
 Still, I bet they were warmer than us!
 Backs of old housing along Harrow Road.....
 Little mooring spots between blocks of housing....
Backs of newer housing too.....
 An elevated section of the Great Westway Road sweeping over the canal.......
 Another little mooring space tucked away
 Litter art collected and made by children, aided by artist Kevin Herlihy
And through the Little Venice stop lock.........
 Out into Browning's Pool............
And on to the end of Paddington Basin......

20 miles, 3 locks

3 comments:

  1. And did you get a mooring in the basin? I have missed being near London.
    Kath (nb Herbie)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes a boater called across to say they would be leaving in 10 mins so we waited for their spot. Just right.

      Delete
  2. Not quite as pretty as travelling through the countryside, but interesting.

    ReplyDelete