adventure is seriously overated

There's just no way to sugar coat this. Our weekend sucked.

Thursday night wasn't so bad and we got off to a relatively good start, arriving at Victoria Park after nightfall, finding a beautiful place to moor along side the park. Woz went to work the next day and I spent the day in the park with Nate.

On Friday night Woz and Adam met Nate and I at the boat by late afternoon and not long after we were off. It was another warm night and so things were looking up until we broke down at a lock in Tottenham. Woz tried his best to determine the problem and after several hours of having tried a number of things we all went to bed. Ever the problem solver Woz was understandably frustrated and instructed Adam and I that if we saw any boats pass, no matter what condition, to swap.

The following morning we finally got going again and things were looking up, that is until it started raining ......... and raining, and raining and raining. We had to make a decision - either stop and sit the rain out in the warmth of a pub which would mean that we wouldn't reach the beautiful scenery and villages we'd been told about, or persevere in order to arrive in Hertford the following day. We persevered.

By nightfall, tired, cold and with dampening spirits we arrived at Stansted Abbots and trundled off to the local pub for dinner which was a welcome relief from the unrelenting locks and served to cheer us up a little.

The following day the weather only became more miserable, and to make matters worse, our gearbox failed giving us the option of going flat out or not going at all. This meant that in order to avoid smashing into the locks or other boats we would have to cut the engine a good distance before reaching them in order for the boat to have slowed down enough not to wreak havoc everything we came in contact with. This also meant that we weren't able to steer the boat and so had to rely on brute force to keep it from hitting the sides of the locks as we approached them.

By mid afternoon we finally reached Hertford and found a place to moor for the night. We walked a short distance along the canal to a canal side pub for lunch and the three of us reminisced on the 'good times' we had enjoyed on the trip. Nope, couldn't think of any. Well no, that's not true, it was great to catch up with Tinks, and he was an absolute Godsend as far as Woz was concerned. helping him with every lock and always with a smile on his face. He and Woz had beaten the river and all the weather could throw at them - no small feat.

Understandably, Tinks decided to head back to London that night and so after a leisurely lunch we walked him to the station. We watched him with envy as he bought a ticket back to Central London. How we wished we could do the same. If only our home wasn’t trapped in the middle of nowhere with only one way home.

After leaving Tinks, we decided we’d explore the village we’d worked so hard to reach. We headed off in the drizzle and traipsed our soggy boots across the village in search of something, anything that would make this trip worthwhile. We found a tourist map which showed a castle in the midst of the town. This was the first bit of excitement we’d had and so we headed towards it with our camera at the ready. This was the icing on the cake (or at least we thought so, little did we know what the rest of the weekend had in store for us) as the “castle” had been entirely rebuilt and was a redbrick building with castle like bricks running along the top. It looked like it had been constructed in the last decade not the last century and was oozing about as much culture as the tub of cream in our unrefrigerated refrigerator after two days of no power.

Deciding to go home at that point wasn’t really a discussion, more like an unspoken agreement to ‘get the hell out of here and back to civilisation’ caught in a single glance. Besides, words really couldn’t describe our disappointment.

That night in the pouring rain, while I fed, bathed and put Nate to bed by candlelight, Woz made a head start on our unimaginably long journey home. After about three hours we called it a night and set our alarm for 6am the following morning. Tomorrow was Monday and we had one day to make it home in time for Woz to return to work on Tuesday. A good night's sleep was essential if we were going to make it through the huge day that lay ahead of us.

I got a 3 am wake up call and ran to the bathroom to throw up the contents of my dinner, which began 24 hours of curling up in the foetal position whenever possible, wincing with pain and running to the bathroom in between.

Soaked to the bone, hands red raw from gripping wet ropes without relent and growing weariness, Woz single-handedly navigated us through every single lock and with dogged determination we were home by 5.30 pm. It hadn’t been uneventful by any means, in just 36 hours we had received a months rainfall causing the water level on the river to rise 150 mm which meant that we tore our chimney off under a bridge we had navigated with ease on the way there.

The journey home which was supposed to take four days had taken us 15 hours and every minute an ordeal.

Needless to say, it was the first and last long distance trip we'll take on our boat. It would have been an entirely different trip if we'd had beautiful weather but either way, the 48 locks we had to pass through to get to Hertford and back were enough to turn us off for life.

If we never see the inside of another lock again it will be too soon.