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Chugging along the silent waterways is the perfect way to escape the city |
Camden Feature | Review| Dan Carrier unlocks the pleasures of the canal | waterways | River Lee Lee Valley Boat Centre
A WEEKEND spent driving an ageing juggernaut through the backyards of London’s industrial heartlands. Doesn’t sound relaxing, does it?
But getting your hands on the tiller of a narrowboat and chugging it through the silent waterways of London and the surrounds is the perfect way to escape the city.
I took out a boat from the Lee Valley Boat Centre in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. It’s a stretch of the canal that directly links to the Grand Union and the Regent’s Canal in Camden and Islington.
I had previously taken a two-day trip south from the boat centre, into central London, so chose this time to head north towards Hertford.
The canals that snake silently through the city are often approached with a held nose. Perhaps this public perception comes from the fact the water was once hideously polluted with the run-off from the factories that sprang up alongside the waterways.
No longer. The canals are cleaner than they have been for years, because of the work by British Waterways and the demise of heavy industry. The tow paths are no longer solely the haunt of drug dealers and muggers: public footpaths stretch for miles and canals have become part of the urban leisure landscape.
Our boat was a vessel called Alexandria which will comfortably sleep four. It has a few little extra touches – a stereo and telly, for starters, which we used only to find out the football results.
The bathroom is well equipped, with a large enough shower and the galley has everything you could need. Central heating radiators that run the length of the boat at foot level keep it toasty.
The engine, an impressive-looking beast below the area from which you steer is massive – it needs to be as the boat is all of 60-odd feet long. The rudimentary talk about how to operate the bilge pump was not needed, but it added to the sense we were setting off on an adventure.
After a rather desolate stretch at the start of the trip, past a caravan site, and through our first two locks, the river opens out and feels much more like a natural watercourse rather than the product of the sweat of a thousand navvies.
After a couple of hours cruising, made all the more pleasurable with a pot of tea on the roof of the cabin, we negotiated a fork: one river branches out to the Stort, and up towards Bishops Stortford. Instead, we went left (port?) and gently parked up on a tow path that runs through the centre of the market town of Stanstead Abbots, mooring at the garden of a pub, in front of a picturesque stone bridge.
Stanstead Abbots is a nice place to spend a night – head up the High Street, which winds along decked either side with ancient homes. There are a couple of restaurants – Chinese, Indian – which we ignored, and instead we headed to a supermarket for supplies. We wanted to try out the galley. It is strictly one at a time in the cooking space, but with a gas cooker and four hobs, as well as a grill and microwave. We rustled up a fair feast, and then played cards and made up sea shanties.
The sleeping area for those not fortunate to bag the captain’s suite is in what during the day is the sitting room. You unhook the table and then unhinge the sofa seats. It’s all very nifty, and after all that fresh air, food and an unquantified amount of beer it was more than adequate.
We spent Saturday heading up to Hertford, through a number of locks, which add a bit of variety, and add to the sense of wellbeing. The hiss and gurgles of water as it fills the basin. The technology, dating from the early Victorian period and still going strong, is so simple and brilliant. It was nice to know we could only go as fast as the water filling the locks would allow.
We easily made Hertford in time for Saturday night. We moored by some allotments, and then walked 100 yards to the Old Barge, built for the thirsts of bargemen 200 years ago.
The run back home, through eight locks, took much of Sunday.
As soon as I stepped back on to dry land in Broxbourne, I was longing for longer trip around the aquatic industrial heritage of England.
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