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Friday 19 August 2016

Sawbridgeworth Friday 19 August 2016

Well I was right about what a poor nights sleep I would get. Stansted Airport is actually a 24 hour operation although they have to limit the type of planes coming in and out between
2330 hrs and 0600 hrs. Looking at their website in 2013 they had 131365 aircraft movements in the year, on an 18 hour day that is one every 2 minutes and 20 seconds. The didn’t seem so frequent when they woke me this morning, the reason being a change in the weather. They were now taking off in our direction, but some turned away before getting to us, unlike when landing they were all on the same line.

I mentioned last night we were moored to the bridge , well here it is. DSCF5404Although it doesn’t look like it, it is actually raining and this would continue on and off all day.

We set off at quarter to ten heading upstream to Bishop’s Stortford, a boat had already gone up so both locks were against us. As you approach Bishop’s Stortford there is a rather imposing foot bridge crossing the river. it has steps and also long sloping approaches on each side. It was impossible to capture in one photograph.

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There were plenty of moorings at the end both 14 day and 2 day. The winding hole is a disused arm and even with a boat moored opposite it in the towpath we had loads of room to get round and drop back onto the 2 day moorings. I decided against going back beyond the moorings to the bridge due to shallow water, weeds and shopping trolleys, but it was close enough to say we had been to the end.DSCF5420

We spent a bit of time in town including a 2 course lunch at Pircio’s an Italian restaurant housed in the old Drill Hall.  After lunch we topped up with water and headed down stream, again the first couple of locks were against us but then we met a boat coming up which helped things.

We carried on down stream to just above Sawbridgeworth lock where we moored in the same spot that we moored for lunch yesterday, there was even more room today but we couldn’t get close in at the other spaces.

Today’s Journey

map 287¼ Miles, 6 locks in 4¼ hours.

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