Friday the 13th arrives and we are ready for our trip down to the Thames (heading for the Kingston area), we have allocated 2 weeks for a round trip and looking forward to the challenge. We arranged for our neighbours and friends (Colin & Audrey) to join us for the first few locks down to Broxbroune (At this stage its worth mentioning that Roydon to Broxbroune takes 4 minutes by train and 10 minutes by car but it took us over 4 hours to get there by boat ?????) Once we got to The Crown in Broxbourne and after a few drinks plans changed quickly. The new plan was for the four of us to travel the first leg of the journey to London (Limehouse) together. We say this was planned but if you ask Colin and Audrey they will tell you that they were kidnapped by pirates, press ganged into being our crew and forced to drink rum (you believe what you want to believe, I don’t even like alcohol ? ).
Saturday morning arrives and we are on the move at 9:30am, the first leg of the journey between Broxbourne and Enfield was lovely (so idyllic) but once we got past Enfield Lock we were in for an interesting ride. The water was the lowest we had seen it and between Enfield and Ponders End we were grounded twice and had our prop tied up around 8 times (this was stressful and tiring) Colin and I shared the helm and prop clearing jobs (you wont believe what lies beneath the water !!!!!) whilst Sonia and Audrey manned the locks and kept us out of trouble. 12 hours later and we arrive in Tottenham Hale, not a place you really want to moor but we had no choice and all in all it worked out fine (I slept with one eye open).
Feeling a little worse for wear we leave Tottenham Hale at around 8:30 am Sunday morning for the last stretch to Limehouse, as we progress the waterways get tighter, busier and the bridges a little lower but 4 hours later we reach Limehouse Marina in London and what a relief this was. Now that we are here there is only one thing to do……….Did someone say a Pub Crawl, alrighty then.
This is Mike Delta Charlie Charlie 4 Over and Out.
PS Keep a lookout for Leg 2, 3 and 4
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