This Xmas holiday time in London I discovered the canals. I know that London and England have canals but never gave them much thought. Sam, Mike and I had a day together and first off we went to the Columbia Rd flower market, not at its spectacular best being the middle of winter but I'm always happy to mooch about London and it was a spectacular clear blue sky day. cold but lovely.
some entertainment at the flower market.
After the flower market we walked about and then Sam said something about the canal and that's when I 'discovered' the canals - we'd just walked across a little bridge over Regent's Canal so we turned around and went down onto the canal path for a closer look. There were canal boats all along the side and there was a lock just along from the bridge. A boat was coming along so we decided to wait and see it go through the lock, Mike thought it takes ages but I asked the lady, who'd got off the boat and was walking purposefully along swinging a rather large metal key thing, and she said 10 - 15 minutes. Turned out that the big metal key thing is used to turn the thing which lifts up the bottom of the lock gates to let the water out. She also told me to get on the boat and have a ride and so I did. I was on the boat while it made it's way through the lock, it was really interesting and I now know a lot more about how locks work, the canal system, the boats, etc etc etc because the man driving was a mine if information and didn't stop talking the whole time, plus I got to have 1st hand experience. I took the opportunity to have a look 'below decks' and was surprised at how warm it was down there. I thought that it was a good lot of space for 2- 4 or maybe a family with a couple of young children adults but couldn't imagine a family with older children loving on one of these boats. It was like a long wide hall with little partitions along the side.
Regent's Canal from the top of the steps
the lock
Sam on the job
here we go into the lock, there's only a few centimeters between the side of the gate and the side of the boat
we sat here inside the lock while the water level went down about 2.5 meters
on our way through to the other side
It was a wonderful experience, so unexpected, just one of those things that happen when walking about.
A couple of days later I met up with friends from Wellington, David and Lesley who were in London for a couple of days, near Paddington Station, which is close to Little Venice and canals, so we went off and had coffee on a canal boat cafe. After coffee we wandered around Little Venice for a bit, along the canal, and then it was time to find somewhere for lunch and more chatting until it was time to go our separate ways. It was great to see them and I look forward to meeting up again in NZ.
Paddington Branch coming off Regent's Canal, little Venice. The boat on the left is the cafe.
A few days after that Emma and I visited the Canal Museum, which was very interesting and well worth the visit. Lots of information, history, pictures, models- some working, and a big, detailed map of the canals in London - existing, closed and proposed routes for canals that never got built. I think that the little specialty museums are great, well, some of them are. I guess that there'll be some crappy ones, too. I haven't seen any, yet! Through the doors at the back of the Canal Museum is a Basin which is like a siding or parking area for canal boats. This one was divided into 2 areas - 1 is for boats moored permanently and are residences and there other part was for those just passing through.
These are some of the permanent boats
Temporary parking area
All in all, my holiday came to have a bit of a 'canal' theme going on. I'd love to do the canal boat ride through part of London, I can't remember exactly where it goes although I think part of it is through Regent's Park, because I think it would be an interesting perspective but I've got no inclination to canal through the countryside. It would be like watching grass grow and I think the locks would lose their fascination quite quickly.
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