Thursday 11th June 2009

Unusual wildlife seen on the walk to Wendover (no trickery used)

It was a beautiful sunny morning and we decided to walk to the end of the Wendover Arm. The guide book said it was five and a half miles each way, so we set off at 0915hrs along the tow path. The middle part of the canal is completely dry and

Modern materials make life easier although it must be hard going with only a volunteer workforce

The canal bed from one of the new bridges that have been errected

the first part that is under restoration and due to be opened in 2010. It was interesting to see how the canals look beneath the surface, and how the trust are following the old methods although where they are putting in moorings they are using modern materials not available to the original engineers.

Lovely quaint canalside cottages at Helton on the Wendover Arm

The last part has very shallow water but beautifully clear with lots of wildlife. We arrived in Wendover two and a half hours later. It was market day and we had a look around and also at some of the interesting buildings.

We had lunch sitting in the sunshine before we made our way back, arriving mid afternoon. Time to sit out next to the boat for another couple of hours sunshine, reading the paper.

It was nice to have a day exploring the local countryside, especially as we have been doing quite a lot of "locking" over the last few days. This has proved to be a lovely spot and hope we can come back one day to do the whole journey by boat.

We are off to Berkhampstead in the morning for Christine to get the train to London on Saturday to meet Lottie for a days accessory buying and I will be carrying out all the necessary checks on the boat.