Sunday 6th August
We woke to a glorious Summer's day, the sun streaming in through the roof hatch. Unfortunately John had to go to the EE shop as one of our portable WIFI units had stopped working. Whilst he did that, Dex and I went for a lovely walk on the common. Dex had his usual swims in the river!
We didn't set off until 11.30am. There were quite a few people around to watch us set off.
As Hertford is at the end of the river Lee we had to turn around. This involved going under a very low bridge to the winding hole. We both had to duck and the sun lounger only just made it under!
John managed to turn it round with ease, he's really good at maneuvers these days! I'm still learning..
Back under the bridge and we were off back down the Lee.
We passed the weir footbridge which Dex and I had crossed earlier.
Soon we arrived at Hertford lock. There were lots of canoeists so I had to wait for them to pass by before entering the lock. John was on lock duty!
We travelled on back towards Ware.
As we passed by the boatyard in Stanstead Abbots we saw these guys taking a teabreak in the boat they were working on. It looked so funny seeing them high up in the dry dock.
Soon we were at the junction where the Lee bends right and the river Stort starts on the left. This was where we were headed today.
It was quite a sharp turn so I was glad John had taken back the steering!
The Stort is beautiful, it's much more rural and a lot narrower than the Lee. The locks are only wide enough to take one boat. We immediately felt more relaxed.
At Lower Lock it was quite busy and we had to wait for one boat to come down and then the one in front of us went up. We could only go in one at a time as the locks are not wide enough.
I had taken the opportunity to do some washing and it was hanging up in the front!
The views improved with lovely open fields on either side.
We passed Roydon Marina, which had it's own lock to go through before entering.
At the next lock, Brick Lock, there was another queue.
Brick Lock cottage was really pretty.
We didn't mind waiting as it was such a glorious day.
This was another fierce lock and you had to open the paddles carefully. Especially as I didn't want any water splashing the washing!!
We were soon on our way again passing through Roydon.
Yet another low bridge!
We came across this beautiful wooden narrowboat in a style we had not seen before.
On the approach to Roydon Mill lock there was another low bridge with a warning sign. We thought we would just scrape underneath and indeed we did, you could hear the metal rails of the sun lounger screeching out as we carved a groove out of the concrete! Ooops!
We arrived at Roydon Lock which was really pretty.
They had a shop here as well selling groceries, teas and ice-creams. No time to stop though!
I loved this boat with this giant sunflower on the bow. They weren't going to get that under the bridge!
We arrived at Hunsdon Mead Nature reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunsdon_Mead
It looked an idyllic spot to moor for the night.
We got close to the bank and I jumped off with the rope. I held the boat whilst John got the mooring pins. He started to bang in the front pins and suddenly he was hopping around and shouting! I thought he had hit his hand with the hammer but no, unbelievably the exact spot he had chosen to bang in the pin was right into a bees nest! He got stung at least 6 times and they started chasing him, it was awful! We had no choice but to get out of there as quick as we possibly could!
We had to go through another lock, Hunsdon Mill lock.
Soon after we found a space along the bank to moor. We were both tired and John's stings were painful so we were both glad to get settled for the night.
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