With everything made ready last night, we were able to get away as soon as we had breakfast. After leaving the mooring we came out of the marina onto the Main Line with mist still hanging around but already some indication of the bright day to follow.
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| Misty Marina |
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| Packet Boat Marina Entrance |
The first stretch was down to Bulls Bridge, with a strong smell of coffee from the factory near the junction testing out our ability to wait until 11 o'clock for our second mug of the day.
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| Coffee Factory |
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| Bulls Bridge Junction Bridge |
All day we were on reasonably familiar territory as we cruised down to Paddington twice last autumn. The Paddington Branch forms part of a 27 mile level pound that stretches from Camden Lock to Slough and down to Hanwell Locks. Unlike other parts of the network, at least the pound was up to normal level.
As the sun came out and blue skies prevailed, we continued on until we reached Horsenden Hill where we pulled in to the bank to have lunch - another of Christine's soups based on bones courtesy of Russell at Gary Dutton's butcher shop back in Wadebridge.
After setting off for the afternoon, we had a brief pause about half an hour later so that Christine could pop into Alperton Sainsbury store right beside the mooring, just for milk and a paper.
A little later Christine spotted a pair of foxes basking in the sun on a narrow ledge between the off side canal bank and the back wall of a factory building. Alas, we were too late to get the camera out in time but perhaps they will still be there when we return - they seemed pretty settled in!
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| Swans and pusher tug |
We passed a few boats on the move including a pusher tug - moving quite fast and taking no prisoners, shooing a couple of swans in front that seemed very reluctant to cede the territory.
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| Wembley Stadium Arch |
From the North Circular Aqueduct we caught one of the few glimpses of Wembley stadium - the arch gleamed in the sunshine rather like a white rainbow.
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| Kensal Green Gasholder |
Neariong Little Venice we passed close to the A40 Westway elevated road - the othe side of the wall are two huge tunneling machines for the Crossrail project - Mike had a better view of them from the train yesterday.
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| Westway Elevated Road |
Mike had checked out Paddington Basin yesterday and we were not over hopeful of finding a space, especially as more of the mooring space has been taken out of use as a result of the next stage of development for Merchant Square and we are also still in the period where winter moorings are let out for 5 months.
When we reached the end of the arm our fears were indeed realised - as Mike winded the boat Christine tried her best to chat up the security guard to see if we could overnight on the former moorings but no such luck. However, rather to our surprise we did manage to fit snugly onto the very last mooring before the junction which we noticed on the way down.
We were grateful as the only options otherwise were to go back towards Westbourne Green or onwards to Kings Cross. the former would have left us with a problem of turning around in the morning (the nearest marked place is about 3 miles away) or having to pass through 4 locks which would have brought us close to sun down and no leeway if those moorings were also full. Still, once again we have just squeaked in!
16.7 miles - 0 locks
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