September 2022 – Page 2 – Narrowboat Firecrest

Riding the Tide, from Teddington to Brentford

We rose early as our Teddington Lock booking was for 7am.

Looking back to say goodbye to the Thames that we had spent 4 months enjoying

Eric had plugged in the VHS radio and erected the aerial, to comply with the Port of London Authority (PLA) bylaws

And off we set

We were sharing the lock with 2 other boats, also going to Brentford. And as they had both done the journey before, were happy to take the lead and keep us in view.

Teddington Lock is actually a triple lock system, the “great” lock or barge lock accommodates the largest boats such as the floating gin palaces, the launch lock for the little boats like Firecrest and the skiff lock, which is a tiny narrow affair for the rowers. Although there are lockies on duty 24/7, they hold back the majority of boats until the tide is high and turning so that we are carried with the down stream flow instead of fighting against it. Hence the need to book our passage. Because we were being given safety instructions, I forgot to take many photos, and because the tide was high, it was more like going through a 6 inch stop lock than the colossal deep trench that we had seen the evening before.

Soon we were on our way, unfortunately the weather was not obliging with the view, and we can only imagine what Ham house up on its hill ought to have looked like.

We soon approached Richmond Bridge

And then Richmond half tide lock. This is a barrage lock that manages tidal river levels, you can pass under the designated arch freely 2 hours either side of high tide, at other times, you have to pay a fee to use the manned lock.

We duly went under the arch and continued speeding downstream. The journey from Teddington to Brentford is about 5 miles, and it had taken us an hour. To put it in perspective, on the canals we travel at roughly 2.5miles per hour. The london skyline was now visible, but we also saw our lead boat turning left.

And the glint of the stainless steel sculpture known as Liquidity that was our marker point to guide us back onto the Grand Union Canal

Liquidity, where the Grand Union Canal joins the Thames

Its quite a tricky manouver to take a narrowboat across the river which has both a downstream and a tidal flow to compete against, but Eric put full throttle on and Firecrest behaved beautifully. We didnt overshoot or get swept downstream backwards. But oh what a difference, from a flowing river that was easily 100m wide, to a much narrower channel, which at this point is still tidal, and into Thames Lock 101. Thames lock also needs to be booked to accommodate the tide levels.

And then we were here, back onto the canal system, goodbye Enviroment agency, hello CRT, hello duckweed, hand cranked locks and urban jellyfish (aka plastic bags and other detritus)

Back on track

With the chores checked, and the chums chatted to, we were back on track travelling towards London. We had a very pleasant overnight stop at the 48 hour Shepperton VM. (Visitor mooring)

Sailed right past Hampton Court palace, (with a touch of envy at the boats moored there)

Through Kingston, where some modern architecture thought he was designing a cruise liner, its actually called the Admiralty building

And under Kingston Bridge. Eric had spent his teenage years around this area, so spent some time checking out his old cycle routes but found it so different from how he remembered it that it wasn’t fun.

And we moored up for the night at Teddington lock

Teddington locks mark the start (or end) of tidal reach for us. The locks are managed by the enviroment agency and transit needs to be booked and is timed to aid navigation go with the flow. We dutifully paid our mooring fee and set the alarms our passage for 7am the following morning.

It had been a long days cruise so we didn’t go far exploring, but I was quite excited to see a fully laden pear tree along the towpath, until I realised, it was also full of parakeets and all the pears had been “tested” we’ve been seeing and hearing these colourful pigeons since we reached Windsor, but I hadn’t been able to snap a photo of them until now because they fly so quickly and are so well camouflaged in the tree tops. Mind you we can certainly hear them. There have been parakeets living wild in the UK since victorian times but their numbers have increased drastically since the 1990s. In 2012 There were around 32000 in London, I suspect its a lot higher now, and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to wonder about the impact these birds will have on our native wildlife.

A slight detour, back to Windsor.

Having enjoyed several days at Hampton Court, we should have continued downstream towards London. But we’d made a few commitments to see people, including having found a dentist willing to see us as walk in customers for our long overdue check ups. Accessing routine health care as a continual cruiser is a continual frustration. We snatch what we can where we can and try to keep healthy, which probably means I shouldn’t take advantage of hedgerow foraging. But the fruit came from Hampton court so I couldn’t miss an opportunity to make Royal Jelly.

We turned the boat around, said goodbye to Hampton Court palace and began our cruise back to Windsor.

Thats a posh pad on the banks of the Thames

But Eric had warned me I might face execution, poaching from Henry VIII’s back yard, so we were a bit worried when we realised we were being chased down by the police.

Turns out it was the Met on the run, not us. They were escaping from their regular city patch to familiarise 2 new officers with the route to Windsor Castle. They occasionally provide royal river protection along that section of the Thames. But whilst they cracked on apace, we meandered more slowly, stopping at Staines, to see the London Stone.

In 1197, Richard I needed money to pay for his Crusades, so he sold the crown’s rights over the River Thames, from the estuary to Staines, to the Corporation of the City of London. The date, 1285 is engraved into this stone as the boundary marker of that new jurisdiction. The original stone is in a local museum but this replica is next to the river in the memorial park

We took advantage to restock the fridge in Staines and enjoy some nice moorings overnight

before heading back upstream, under the M25

Past the lovely mooring at Runnymede, although the NT had decided August would be a good time of year to relay the footpath so although we were able to moor, we were effectively caged in and unable to access the actual site.

When we got back to Windsor we checked onto the electric mooring point and had visits from some good friends

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30