Back to heavy locks

Last night's mooring at Springfield Marina

The river this morning was clam and back to its usual lazy flow, and quite different from last night's torrent. Considering we were between Hackney and Tottenham, it was also very quiet! We set off towards Tottenham in the sunshine, the pace seeming really slow compared to yesterday's roller coaster ride down the Thames.

 Duck! Low flying geese 

 A cormorant sitting on a crane 

 A fish about to meet its maker

Surprisingly, even though we are making our way up through urban North London, there is still plenty of wildlife to be seen. Today we have seen loads of herons, moorhens with chicks, cormorants, swans, ducks, coots and a good many fish in the clear water.

 A small boat with ideas above its station 

 A populat ice cream boat

 The towpath was really busy once we reached Pickett's Lock. There were quite a few runners, walkers and a seemingly incesant procession of cylists. Stepping off the boat onto the towpath to pull the boat in had to be done carefully to avoid being mown down by a fast moving bike.

 5 lads a leaping

We came across these lads near Broxborne. They were climbing onto the rails on a bridge, waiting until a boat got close and then jumping into the river right in front of it. They were pretty good at it, and whilst I slammed Banjo into reverse through fear of drining over them, they actually timed it perfectly and were out of the way just in time.

 Carthanegena lock

 We reached Carthenagena lock by late afternoon, and it was as pretty as ever. This lock is well known for being covered in flowers and the air was full of the scent of the roses.

 Bloomin' lovely 

 Crayfish supper for a young coot

 We moored up at Dobbs Weir, which is one lock short of the junction with the River Stort. We watched (and Angela fed!) a group of coot chicks. One of them had something in its beak which it kept shaking and dropping into the water, before diving and retrieving it again. We think it was a small crayfish, and it was having lots of fun with it. 

A friendly black swan at toight's mooring

 Tomorrow we will turn onto the River Stort and the final stage of our trip.