Living in a hallway: It's still summer

We continued our trip down the Grand Union Canal leaving Hemel Hempstead and heading for the big smoke.

An interesting evening was had at Watford helping a dutch barge that became stuck due to low water in the pound at Cassiobury Park. This area of the Grand Union appears to be quite neglected as we spent a few nights on the muddy bottom ourselves.

The weather has been quite humid and we decided to stop a couple of days in Harefield South just to relax. We then cruised further south towards Brentford to get onto the Thames.

Between Harefield and Brentford was pretty scummy a lot of crappy boats half sinking into the canal and not canal worthy at all. Who knows how they manage to get their boat safety certificates.

We are still meeting friendly people and we paired up with another couple to Brentford. We had to wait for the lock booking so our new mate Jonno cracked a nice bottle of red.

We have now left the canal system and are heading up the River Thames. The contrast between the lower reaches of the Grand Union Canal and the Thames couldn't be more obvious.

Along the Thames there are heaps of properties worth millons of pounds and some very flash boats.

Something we found surprising is that Windsor (a pretty posh area) is directly under the flight path to Heathrow. The loud noise of the jets is continuous throughout the day.

One of our first stops was a visit to Hampton Court Palace. We moored right out the front spent the day exploring the palace and gardens then stayed the night.

We found a good mooring at Laleham just near the pub an American couple on their Honeymoon and with their host Bobby and his neighbour Ros, were trying to get a mooring at Laleham so they could visit the Three Horseshoes pub for a meal. We let them moor up beside us and they were that appreciative they insisted we went to the pub so they could shout us a pint. We had a great night sharing our observations of the wacky poms.

Moorings on the river are a lot harder to get than on the canals everywhere you look there are private property No Mooring signs. A couple of times we've gone bush and tied up to trees on one of the many islands.

Going through locks is a lot easier all bar one so far have been manned and they are electric. You just push a button.

Our Thames pass expires tomorrow and we've still got a week to get us to Oxford so we think we might turn off and have a poke around the Kennet and Avon Canal before returning to the Thames.