FreeSpirit : Giving 4 Aussies a shock

Friday, 7 July 2017

Giving 4 Aussies a shock

Oh dear, our travel pack gave up the ghost up last night. No charge going into the batteries for part of the journey yesterday and only discovered once the engine was switched off. We had to rely on the last dregs of the dying sun on the solar panels to keep the fridge going. Slightly worried about freezer defrosting but... I have a man that can. And Ian, crawling into the depths of the wardrobe where the travel pack was housed, deduced that it had just overheated and shut itself down. Phew...After allowing it to cool off, engine was once more fired up and disaster was averted.

This morning we had just pushed off when a boat came through the bridge ole. An Alvechurch boat, which we found out later had on board 4 Australians. Seems the UK to be the prefered boating holiday destination of many of our antipodean 'down under' friends. Anyway, we shared the locks right up to Rickmansworth. Although I was ashamed to say that as experienced boater (debateable said Ian), I rather got it wrong when trying to get Ian off at the railway bridge and got well and truly stuck in the mud. Had to reverse off and who was right behind us? but the Aussies of course! Oops...Sorry guys for giving you a shock when I sent FS's stern straight at you! But my 'man that can' acted as the bow thruster saving the day by poling me off.

We watered up at Rickmansworth leaving Allen, Bronwyn, Shane and Kathrine (yes names and emails were exchanged) to find a space to moor. We also hoped a space would be free once we had finished filling the tank but I was dismayed to see wall to wall boats ahead. Our new friends said we could moor alongside and we were only too happy to do so. Then a boat ahead left his mooring further along and we decided to take the vacated space. Ian suddenly spied Tesco moorings on the offside and we changed plans yet again and moored there. No overnighting was allowed so as soon as we finished the shop it was start engine and get underway.

Didn't travel much further, another 1/2 mile and got the last visitor moorings by Stockers lock. A fabulous nature reserve was a stones throw away so I had to go and see didn't I. This place is huge. 41 hectors and a tad to large for me to do it justice. But I did find a few things to photograph.