Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

THE LONDON - OXFORD RING, SUMMER 2000

Part 3 : Two Rallies

I came up on my own to take the boat from Limehouse to Three Mills, while Wendy went down to Marlborough to visit my father. I left the mooring in Limehouse basin at 18:39, joined the Limehouse Cut, passed Bow Locks to join the Bow River section of the Lee Navigation and was tying up at my mooring at the Three Mills Rally (about a third of the way from Three Mills Bridge to Bow Locks) by 19:20.

EVENING'S RUN : 1.6 miles. No locks in 41 minutes.

I left the boat early to go to Little Venice to lead some towpath walks for Westminster Adult Education's "Canal Day". Jeff Dennison was also involved, singing on board the trip boat.

Returning in the evening, I joined in the socialising. I was sitting with some other South London IWA folk when Dorothy Robbie started asking me some of the questions from a waterways quiz that had been handed out. We later found that between us we'd got all but one of the answers right and had won the Alan Russell Memorial Trophy, a traditional boat-horse's nose bowl decorated by Tim Whitelock. We were particularly pleased to win this trophy on its first appearance, as we had both been friends of Alan (but then so had most people at the Rally).

Wendy joined while I was out leading a towpath walk round the Bow Back Rivers and photographing the return of the boats from a cruise to the Thames Barrier & back. We arranged to cruise to the National Waterways Festival site at Waltham Abbey next day with David Pearce (from St Pancras Cruising Club) on Gnashers II, who will be single-handed. Wendy had a day off her Jury Service the next day, so I didn't have to ask around for any crew.

We set off in company with Gnashers II at 8:10, and soon found ourselves in a queue of boats waiting to go past a dredger that was at work beneath the Northern Outfall Sewer bridge. We had been waiting a long time for BW to dredge this stretch which has been horribly silted, but they've obviously been waiting for the work currently in progress to modify Bow Locks and Three Mills Sluice to keep the tides (which cause the siltation) out of this section of the navigation. Once past, we found that because the first few locks on the Lee are 88 ft long and also quite wide, we could fit three boats into the lock by putting the smallest at the back at an angle across the lock.

We had the usual trouble with unreliable control equipment on the mechanised lock at Old Ford, which delayed us some more, so it was not until 10:07 that we all stopped at Springfield Marina to observe the rule of all Rallies & Festivals "Please arrive with your water tanks full and your holding tanks empty".

At Enfield the locks become a bit shorter, so we parted company from the third boat and went on. We found our mooring site for the "National" at 14:43 a little way below Waltham Town Lock, and persuaded another boater to move off it (even though it's not until Wednesday that people were asked to be on their own mooring).

I needed to go on site to find our "office" (porta-cabin) for the Festival newsletter and to make arrangements with Martin Ludgate for transporting my computer up from home the next day. Meanwhile Wendy headed for home (a) to feed the cat and (b) because she was looking after my father over the Bank Holiday weekend.

DAY'S RUN : 12.2 miles, 6 locks in 5 hr 57 min

I went home by train soon after 06:00 & returned by WRG van with the computer to start work for the "National". I found that I had good friends moored nearby, Brian & Marty Seymour on Mentor immediately outboard of me, and David Harris on Lucy on the next mooring. Both crews are from St Pancras Cruising Club.

This was the run-up to the "National" and the event itself. For most of the time I was fully occupied editing the Newsletter and so didn't see much more than the editorial porta-cabin and the beer tent. The task seemed much easier this year because (a) none of the equipment malfunctioned and (b) we had reliable volunteers to do the photo-copying, folding and bundling of the newsletter each afternoon/evening once Martin & I (and others) had finished writing it. On Monday I was able to see some of the show. Saw quite a lot of Cutweb folk (too numerous to remember except that Tony Mealing, the Woodings and Brian Holt kept crossing my path) at various stages.

Because Wendy had to travel back from Dad's place the previous evening, feed the cat at home and then get to Waltham this morning, we'd not booked to lock through Rammey Marsh until 14:00. In fact she arrived quite a bit before then. We set off from our mooring at 13:47, winded in the mouth of Hazelmere Marina, and headed South wondering who we would be sharing the locks with. It turned out to be our good friends Kathy & Sarah Russell (widow & daughter of Alan, mentioned above) on Auntie Barb. By Pickett's Lock we'd caught up with a single boat running ahead of us, which turned out to be our friends the Eggbys who moor next to us at the Club. Since Cathy and Sarah were nearly at their home mooring, they suggested we went ahead with the Eggbys, which we did. We stopped opposite Springfield Marina to clear the weed-hatch, then continued to tie up at one of our regular moorings, between Old Ford Lock and the junction to "Duckett's Cut" (a.k.a. the Hertford Union).

DAY'S RUN : 11.0 miles, 5 locks in 4 hr 21 min

An 08:23 start took us into Duckett's, and we reached the other end by 09:49, sharing locks with Aylevarroo for the whole day. Above City Road lock both boats needed to clear our weed-hatches, then we set off together again through Islington tunnel. Above Camden Aylevaroo stopped as the female half of the crew had to go and catch a train. We went on, through Little Venice, where we disposed of rubbish en passant. After joining the Paddington Branch, we stopped at Sainsbury's at Alperton for some shopping, then made an overnight mooring at 17:34 at the Black Horse at Greenford. Later Aylevaroo arrived and moored immediately ahead of us, at almost exactly the moment that their crew member arrived by rail from where-ever she'd had to go. Later still other friends on their way back from the Festival moored nearby, and very late the distant sound of a Bolinder heralded Drew Burge doing some night boating in Greyhound, which had won the Bolinder Trophy at the Festival (again!).

DAY'S RUN : 16.7 miles, 11 locks in 8 hr 13 min

There was no hurry, so we didn't start until 10:45, stopped at Willowtree Marina for a pump-out, passed through Bull's Bridge and turned North up the main line towards our home mooring. A hour-and-a-half's lunch stop at The Shovel by Cowley Lock meant that we didn't get back to our Uxbridge mooring until 15:58, and decided to have a lazy evening on board and travel home next morning.

DAY'S RUN : 9.8 miles, 1 lock in 3 hr 13 min
CRUISE TOTALS (5 boating days) : 51.3 miles, 23 locks in 22 hr 25 min