Kate and I had planned to go on little 3-day barge trip for a while.
Unfortunately our breakup changed the plans a bit.
I did end up going with a few of my colleagues and friends.
We got to Lee Valley Boats Center early
Friday afternoon and checked out our boat, Emily. A 68ft long canal boat!!!
It would have fitted 10 people but we were only 6, Duncan, Roger, Jarkko, Tina, Kym and I. So, there was going to be plenty of space just in case we would not get along ;).
Before leaving though, we had to quickly buy some food and booze!
This was when the first rain poured down on us... nothing like a british summer weekend!
After a few driving lessons we took off north to the first lock and on to the next...
We had to do all the lock handling ourselves, which turned out to be quite some fun and by the end we had a good "team setup".
The weather started clearing up and it started getting darker.
We made it all the way to Ware, where we decided to have dinner at a little pub.
The food was great and the weather got worse, it started pouring down like crazy.
Back on the boat we ended up drinking more wine and beer and played some card games til late that night.
The next morning started out with a bit of sun and we made our way up to Hertford. We planned to visit a castle there, but it turned out to be a bit different than we expected. It wasn't really anything to visit.
But, we got some more shopping done (because we drank all the booze already)
and made our way back down the river.
That night we cooked ourselves and just ate, drank and talked till late.
On Sunday we went up further north towards Harlow.
We had plenty of sunshine and the river was much narrower and also prettier.
Plenty of locks and nice scenery.
It was a very peaceful ride on the boat, with no more than 5mph. But it sometimes can be too peaceful. So, we ended up doing silly things like
cartwheels on the roof,
or climbing up and down bridges while the boat passes underneath it ;)
We got back to Broxbourne oround 17:00h on Sunday.
It was a very relaxing weekend and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it.
No comments:
Post a Comment