Voyages of Gabriel: Berkhamsted to Hemel Hempstead

Tue 2^nd April

A wet day with no plans to move. We had arranged to meet two other Canal Ministries couples, Henry and Lin, and Alan and Geraldine for lunch. Only the date and town had been arranged. No venue or time.

How not to organise an event

Henry rang and said we are to meet at the coffee shop almost opposite Wetherspoons. He couldn’t remember the name of it. We found that the Berkhamsted Wetherspoons was the Crown, and there were two cafes opposite: Bel Caffe and Black Goo. We were a few minutes early, and it was raining, so we opted for Bel Caffe, and told the lady that we were waiting for friends. After we had dripped water on her floor from our brollies, we had a call from Lin to say that they were in Mario’s a little further back. We apologised to the lady, and told her we were in the wrong place, and we left to find Mario’s. Then we had a call from Henry also to say they were in Mario’s. We spotted him on his phone across the road outside the library, so we crossed the road to join him. As we did so, we spotted Mario’s on the same side where we had been! Apparently, Mario’s had no toilet, so Henry went to find the one in the library. We crossed back to Mario’s and found Lin on her own. When Henry returned, he said this wasn’t the place, and where we had been was probably the right place. So we went back to Bel Caffe and explained to the lady there why we were back. Henry phoned Alan, who was already in Berkhamsted, looking for somewhere to park. Eventually he and Geraldine arrived and finally we all had a coffee. It was very good coffee!

Bel Caffe

Before we went for lunch, Alan had to move his car, and we needed to buy a card, and Lin needed to go to Boots. We returned with our card, and found Henry, who said he had informed Alan that we were having lunch at the Kings Arms. This was not the right place, and is next door to the Crown, where we were going.

The Crown and the Kings Arms

These pubs are probably so named because the Anglo-Saxons surrendered to the Normans under William the Conqueror here at Berkhamsted Castle, after the Battle of Hastings.

After more texts and calls we finally all assembled in the Crown! The meal was good Wetherspoons fare and the fellowship was great. Thank you, Henry, for “organising” it. Thankfully we have mobile phones these days. 😊

Is this the man who moves packs of mushrooms to the baked bean shelf in Aldi?

Lin Hazel Alan

James Henry Geraldine

No boating today

Wed 3^rd April

Today was meant to be wet, but we had lovely sunshine all day until late afternoon. We found that some large birds had left their visiting cards on our boat roof, maybe because we had been moored under a tree. We pottered round the shops and some market stalls (fudge for James!) before moving the boat further down where there are mooring rings and no trees. James washed the starboard side of the boat and removed the offending items. At about 4.30pm James checked his emails and discovered that the work on the lock had finished at 11.30am. We could have set off in the sunshine if we had checked earlier.

Our sunny mooring in Berkhamsted

No boating today

Thu 4^th April

After our good experience in Bel Caffe on Tuesday, we decided to give them our breakfast business this morning. Avocado on toast for Hazel, and Eggs Royale for James. We then bought a few items in Tesco Express before getting the boat ready for departure.

Breakfast at Bel Caffe

Anticipation

As were going down the first lock of the day, lock 54, the lady from the boat moored behind us, Manatee, came to chat. We complimented her on the lovely flowers in the bows of her boat.

Berkhamsted has many historic houses, including, in the High Street, the oldest timber-framed building in England, which we missed. The castle we have seen before. There is also a genuine Canadian totem pole on the site of Alsford’s timber yard. The history is here. And a roses and castles plaque dedicated to Francis Egerton, 3^rd Duke of Bridgewater, who built the “first” canals near Manchester, about a hundred years after the Wey Navigation opened.

Totem Pole

Memorial plaque

The weather today was very cloudy and damp, and it started to rain as we were in lock 55, so we stopped on the lock bollards of lock 56 to wait for the worst to pass. After 15 minutes it eased off, and another boat came up through the lock, so we took the opportunity and went down.

A wet day in Berkhamsted

We had hoped to use the elsan and water point by bridge 142a, but there was a large boat moored there, and it looked like a permanent mooring. Moving on, we came to Top Side Lock, no 56, where we saw two men in orange overalls, looking like escapees from Guantanamo Bay. They had been doing the work on the lock to seal the brickwork and stop the leaks. I asked them if it was still necessary to leave the lock empty, and was told that it was. So, not a lot of confidence in their leak-stopping exercise then. After leaving lock 57, we realised we had something on the prop, so we stopped on the lock bollards, and James removed what appeared to be a woolly hat.

Bottom Side Lock 57

Rubbish on the prop

After Lock 58 it started to rain again, so we decided that we had done enough for the day. We looked for moorings after bridge 145, but they all needed mooring pins – no fun wielding a mallet in the rain. We had seen some piling just before the bridge, so we reversed through the bridge, and discovered that it was shallow at the edge. We reversed a little more, and found a deeper place behind another boat.

Moored near bridge 145

In view of the stoppage and the weather, we have revised our schedule, and are now aiming for Kings Langley Baptist Church for Sunday, instead of Watford. We have seen only two other boats moving since we arrived in Berkhamsted on Monday.

6 locks, 2 miles dep 1100 arr 1345

Fri 5^th April

Today was much brighter and sunny at times. We left our mooring and went down through two locks to where we had intended to be last night, by the Three Horseshoes pub. We were pleased we had stayed where we were, as there was a lot of noise from the A41 which is very close at this point.

Winkwell Swing bridge is fully automatic and operated with a CRT key. There is a busy boatyard here and some grit blasting was happening – more noise. A boat came up Winkwell Bottom Lock 61, and it was a guy who usually runs a coal boat. He had just bought this boat, possibly for his daughter who was with him. She had just hurt herself getting her fingers caught in a rope, and yesterday hitting her leg with a mallet.

Winkwell Swing Bridge

Winkwell Lock 61

Lovely spring flowers

We moved on down through Boxmoor and discovered a widebeam going down Lock 65 in front of us. We soon caught them up, as there was a queue for the water tap by lock 66. As we only wanted rubbish and cassette facilities, we overtook and went down through the lock. We moored on the offside where there were some bollards near Sainsbury’s.

A very pleasant elderly gentleman on the next boat told us that a new store had just opened – The Range, with an Iceland section. We went there first and bought some flowers for the boat roof, plus some compost. Also some frozen food. The place was really busy as it was their grand opening day.

We took everything back to the boat before Hazel went to Sainsbury’s, and James planted the marigolds. He also put some more grease in the stern gland greaser.