After another peaceful evening in the countryside I set off on Sunday morning down the final three locks on my way to the capital. The first being the aptly named Denham Deep look which at 11 ft somewhat dwarfed Mr Bunbury.
The Grand Union canal continues south to Brentford where it join the Thames but I turned off onto the Paddington arm which, as the name suggests, links the GU to Paddington and joins the Regents Canal at Little Venice. The canal becomes more urban as it approaches the city, sadly it also became extremely cluttered with rubbish, the majority being plastic bags ranging from sweet packets to bin liners. They are a pain as they get wrapped around the propeller and need to be removed by hand. The boat is equipped with a "weed hatch" which is basically a removable plate to allow access to the prop from within the boat. I had three trips into the weed hatch during the day. Not pleasant. I later found out that this is an annual phenomenon known as "The Churn". Apparently, the warm spring weather heats the water and releases methane gas from the rotting vegetation on the canal bottom which then causes the rubbish which has accumulated and sunk over the winter months to float to the surface. After a few weeks the gas has been released and the rubbish once again sinks to the bottom.
On a brighter note the local bird population is supplemented by ring necked parakeets which are the only naturalised parrot in the UK. Although they brighten the area they do make a lot of noise.
By early afternoon I reached my destination of Paddington basin and managed to find a mooring next to the station. After the peace and quiet of the last two moorings it seems strange to be next to a main London station, surrounded by tall buildings with hundreds of people passing by rather than the the odd jogger or dog walker.
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