A Very Pretty Waterway

We spent a quiet night at Cheshunt and in the morning set off on our way towards the end of the Lea.
We went through several locks. Everyone is very friendly and waves or talks to us.
We've also had offers of help at the locks.
We've passed very few boats. The craft here are a real mixture,
quite different from what we normally see on the canal.
We've seen canoes, motor boats, wide beam barges and narrowboats.

The scenery becomes prettier by the mile.
It's very much how I would imagine it to be in "Wind in the Willows".
Very lush and verdant, with little creeks, backwaters, weirs and mill races.



Around Broxbourne there were some lovely houses with gardens running down to the river.
There are lots of ducklings, goslings, cygnets and baby moorhens and coots.

Eventually we came to the junction of the Lea and Stort and turned left on to the Lea towards Hertford.
We moored for the night at Stanstead Abbots--what a lovely English name!
The moorings were right in the village.
We seemed to be moored near a bakery factory, judging by the odours which wafted our way.
We walked in to the village to shop, and it was delightfully old fashioned.
There were little individual shops--a bakery, newsagents, chemist, ironmonger, etc.

It was tempting to stay put, but we resisted and moved on upstream to Hertford.
We had four more locks to do, and two of them were the most ferocious we had ever been in.
They had gate paddles in the top gates to let the water in.
This means that instead of the water coming in from the sides of the lock
it was coming in from about a third of the way up the gate, directly in front of us.
We knew these gates were fierce, other boaters had warned us about them
but even though Trev opened them slowly, the water was wild.
I was steering and it was impossible to hold the boat still.
Poor old Liberty Belle was thrown all over the lock, banging in to the sides with the power of the water.
I could do nothing about it.
When I went below to check the damage, I found a trail of destruction:

the radiators covers had fallen off
cupboard doors and drawers had opened, spilling their contents on the floor
an ornamental plate had fallen off the wall, thankfully it was still in one piece
a wine glass had fallen out of a cupboard and broken
all of the books had fallen from the shelves and were in a heap on the floor.

Apart from that everything was fine!

We came through Ware, a pretty town from the river.
All along the river were eighteenth century gazebos at the bottom of the gardens.



We continued in to Hertford.



This is the limit of the navigable Lee and so we winded (turned for you landlubbers!)
and moored alongside the canal by some allotments.
Moored next to us is a wide beam barge, a most impressive boat
which is 12'6" wide (ours is 6'9") and 65' long.



It was built in Warwick, my home town, by Delta Marine,
and I must say we're quite envious of the space inside.
We keep hoping we'll get an invitation to go aboard.....
Of course, a drawback with a wide beam boat is that you're very limited
as to which waterways you can use.
Principally it would be the Grand Union, the Kennet & Avon and the Thames.
They are better suited to the continental waterways.

We stayed in Hertford until Tuesday morning.
The mooring was very quiet and peaceful, right by some allotments,



yet less than a five minute walk in to town.
We enjoyed the convenience of it all, and I used the free internet facility in the Museum several times.
Friends came to visit us one evening, and all in all it was a very pleasant interlude.
Hertford is a pretty little town, with good shops and a market on Saturday.



On Tuesday, we reluctantly left Hertford and went back down the Lee towards the junction.
Our intention had been to go to the junction and turn left on to the Stort.
But the weather closed in and the rain came down and we got wetter and wetter,
so we moored up in the same spot at Stanstead Abbott as we had moored on the way up.
We turned the central heating on and dried out.

We've booked our time to go out on to the Thames at Limehouse.
The dreaded deed will be done at 7.00 a.m. on June 12th!
Then I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to the rest of the trip with a light heart!
We shall moor up in the Limehouse Basin for the two preceding nights,
and have friends coming to join us for the trip.
They must be mad!

You may be wondering what happened to Anne & John on "Phantom"?
Well, we've had telephone contact with them, but they're miles and miles ahead!
They've done the Thames, and the Kennet and Avon.
They must move at the speed of light! Or else we're very slow.

Home Page

Next Page

Previous Page

Click here to return to the Summer 2004 Page