Tuesday 25th July - a lovely sunny day. I should mention that John fixed the broken seat last night and it's now firmly bolted down! He also fitted 2 security lights to the bow and stern.
We set off about 9.30am, our first job was to turn sharp right onto the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal. I was glad that it was John's turn to steer!
The signpost told us we had 13.5 miles to go!
Luckily there were no locks on this stretch so hopefully we would make good time.
I have to say we found Southall to be pretty grim, a lot of rubbish and graffiti everywhere. Such a shame as you could imagine how it used to be. Lots of the boats were in a really poor state, it was hard to imagine people living on them but they were. Quite a few house boats too.
We did see some nice mosaics in amongst the grafitti which made a nice change.
Soon we came across this Marina which advertised pump out services so we decided to call them and they were able to send someone to help. It was a luxury not to have to use the self service pump out machine! The man there was really helpful and told us where we could moor.
After this we passed through Northolt.
Old lifeboats seem to be a popular choice around here!
Soon after we were passing through Greenford past the Black Horse pub.
We saw a nice selection of wildlife on this stretch of canal, swans, ducks, coots and heron!
We passed a nice looking pub but unfortunately no time to stop!
The landscape was getting ever more industrial.
Time for a quick selfie! 😊
There is always plenty to see along the canal and lots to make you smile. Check out the boat allotment and the antique table on the roof!
There is a great mixture of old and new, shabby and smart as we approach the run in past West Kilburn, Kensal Town and Westbourne Green to Little Venice.
We weren't quite sure what this was all about but it looked very interesting!
We came across this wall art made from rubbish. Very clever!
Soon we arrived at Little Venice where we hoped to moor for the evening. It was hard to see anything similar to Venice apart from the canal! Despite the fact that there seemed to be plenty of available moorings we were told we couldn't moor there. The canal and river trust have 2 moorings which you can pre-book but they were full apparently until at least October 2018. Yet the mooring spaces were empty, all very strange.
So we decided to turn down into the Paddington basin. It was a dead end but we had been told by one of the other boaters we could moor down there - fingers crossed!
We had reached the end and no mooring spaces! We were just about to give up when John spotted a canal and river trust boat. He asked one of the crew where we could moor and he told us we could moor on the end of this pontoon in front of the small boats. It literally was the last free spot so we felt very lucky! Also right near Merchants square and very handy for Hyde park!
We still had plenty of time to go exploring and take Dex to Kensington Gardens and Hyde park!
We spotted a parakeet!
Afterwards we went to a really lovely traditional pub which was dog friendly. The food was yummy!
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