WALKING THE GRAND UNION CANAL

Or, an ongoing project (now on hold)

As you might remember, I'm a fan of ongoing walking projects, and despite being only a few days into our London-Norfolk walk, we decided we needed another project. Partly this was because we needed some more local walks (the London-Norfolk walk was at a point where we'd have to do a few days at a time to make the travel worthwhile).

So, we decided we'd start walking the Grand Union Canal - aided in part by the purchase of a map (mostly for boaters) of the canal and all its arms, from our favourite map shop. In London, the GUC includes the Paddington arm (and its extension, the Regents Canal), the GUC proper (which joins the Thames at Brentford) and the Slough arm. Then canal wends its way north around London then north-west. Close by, there's the Wendover arm (disused) and the Aylesbury arm.

The there are several more arms - the canal eventually ends up in Birmingham and also in Derbyshire. There's plenty of walking to be had! The walking is also fairly easy as the towpaths are flat, well signposted and easy to follow (just keep to the canal and don't turn down the wrong arm).

There are a few pics of our second leg (in reverse from Paddington to Camden) here. But let's start at the beginning:

Limehouse Basin to Camden (Regents Canal, December 2011):

Camden to Paddington (in reverse, Regents Canal, January 2012):

Paddington to Perivale (Paddington Arm, with our friend J, April 2012):

Perivale to Bull's Bridge Junction (Paddington arm to GUC proper, June 2012):

But! In between those last two, we also headed up to Tring on the train and spent a couple of days walking the Aylesbury and Wendover arms!

Tring to Aylesbury (Aylesbury Arm, May 2012):

Wendover to Tring (Wendover Arm, May 2012):

It rained on us most of that day, so we didn't get a lot of photos! Anyway, it was a lot of fun learning more about how the canal network, well, works. It was also nice to see the seasons change by the water from winter through spring to early summer.

... And now the project is on hold, because we've moved to East Sussex, so the GUC is no longer so easily accessible. Also, J has a full time job, so getting away is not as easy as before! Still, we're now living in the countryside and it's absolutely lovely. Eventually, you'll get more photos of that - but there are still several from summer to get through, including our amazing trip to Wales!