Regents Canal to Limehouse

Despite our location it had been quite peaceful overnight and little pedestrian traffic as we woke up and had breakfast. As soon as we set off we turned right onto the Regents Canal which passes through Regents Park.

Moorings at Paddington

Regents Park

At the far end Christine deftly turned sharp right under the bridge at Cumberland Basin and so through to the top of the Camden Locks.

Prince Albert Road Bridge

At this time of the year the locks were rather quiet and only a few visitors. The top two locks have locked railings around them on the towpath side to keep the crowd away from the working area. Most of the market stalls on the canal side were shut up as well.

Below Hampstead Road Locks at Camden Market

The top lock had paddles locked open on one side (this is the only place where both of the locks are now operational. At one time, all twelve down to Limehouse were doubles). This meant that there was plenty of water running down over the weirs.

Although much of the land adjoining the canal has been re-developed in recent years, the occasional reminder of older times peeps through.

Over the winter, new name signs and numbers have appeared on all the bridges of this canal - in this case there also seems to be a name change. The older sign and Nicholsons calls this Oblique Bridge.

New Bridge Names

The 960 yards(!) Islington Tunnel and is very straight so it is easy to see that nothing is coming the other way. This time there were no ghosts - see blog at the end of last October to see why we thought there might have been some!

After completing six of the locks it was time for lunch and we were fortunate in finding a spot with a couple of bollards even if the view was not spectacular!

On again and the day continued fine but overcast and cooler than yesterday but not especially chilly.

Commercial Road Lock above Limehouse Basin

We finally arrived at Limehouse just after 3.30 - time for Christine to have a quick chat with the lock keeper whilst Mike attended to the services on the pontoon (the office closes at 4). She also heard about the narrow boat waiting to go down - they will not reach Teddington until 8 this evening.

Limehouse Lock

Moored in Limehouse Basin

We were quite surprised to see that there were no other boats on the 24hr visitor moorings so we were not forced to look further. There are a lot of new mooring pontoons but, alas, they are not for use as they are intended for the Olympic waterbuses and cannot be used by anyone else. Now when are the Olympics? We are uncertain about how far we might have to go for the next good mooring so it was as well to stay here over night.
Later, Christine wanted to have a photo of the night scene - this required Mike to install the user guide (the paper copy is not this sophisticated!) to find out how to use the Night Scene (Handheld) mode . . .

Limehouse Basin at night

8.6 miles - 12 locks