Back To The Ditches

We have now left the Thames, our ticket ran out today, we had a last run down to Brentford and joined the Grand Union canal at Thames lock -  just !!!    Luckily  we were travelling with Colin and Freda and their lovely tug decked boat, Dolphin, who knew the way, if not we would be in the English channel now, for spotting the route off the Thames was not easy, even having made the turn onto the river Brent, we were not sure what was happening -  as motorists we were spoilt with the amount of traffic signage prior to an exit, there is nothing to warn you on the river.
We have really enjoyed our time on the river, the cleanliness, the width, history, towns, it even smells nice ! So a bit of a shock to the system seeing the cut and the floating debris, the colour of the water, after the clean river. We are moored at the bottom of a flight of locks in Hanwell, we plan to move in the morning with Colin and Frieda, the locks are double, so we can both fit in and share the work, we hope to moor around Uxbridge tomorrow evening.

We leave our mooring at Hampton Court Palace

Another bridge over the Thames, Lindsey or Phil can tell us which we hope !

The width of the river has been great

And is needed when going through racing boats

The large lock empty prior to us using it, we are all waiting for high tide above the lock

Chaos ! As boats going in and out meet, the ferry is trying to get in too

Back to the cut, Colin leads as we adjust to the canals again 

So a new canal system to explore, and we will have to remember that to turn, we now need to locate a winding hole again ! We still have not really planned much in to the future, well there is always tomorrow for that.

Bye for now,

Baz and Ali.