There and back to see how far it is.

Monday 11th May.

Little Venice to the Slough Arm.

We left Paddington Basin at 9.40am, after a very pleasant stay.

We entered Little Venice Pool from the Basin and turned right. We then cruised up towards Maida Hill Tunnel, destination Camden Market.It was the first time Keith and I had been to Camden Market. We arrived to a very quiet market. Some of the stall holders were still opening up. It wasn't awake properly, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves, which was nice, as neither of us are into large crowds. The Canal Market re-opened on Saturday, after it was destroyed by fire in February 2008.The Horse Tunnel Market is really spectacular, with it large horse statues. The Stables were built in the 19th Century for horses and pit ponies that were used to shunt railway wagons. Today the stables are used as stalls for the market traders, it is all very impressive. Although we found the market interesting, there was very little in the way of things there that we would buy. As neither of us is into Leather and Goth clothing. What you cannot help but notice, is that many of the stalls have the same things. The food hall of the market did get our mouths watering from the fantstic smells permeating through out the market. If it had been lunch time, we may have tried some of what was on offer. With the visit over we headed back to Hadar, which was on the stop and shop moorings, which allows you 4 hours stopping time. Whilst Keith got us underway, I made us a coffee.The weather had been very kind to us all day, with warm sunshine. The only downside was the breeze, which was gusty at times. We head back past London Zoo and back into the Little Venice Pool, where we stopped to empty the toilet cassettes. We have really enjoyed our visit to London once again and will be back again in the future, to carry on to do the Thames again.We saw only a couple of other boats moving today, one of them was a lighter being pushed by a tug. I was a little surprized to see it so quite. We stopped at Alperton to do a food shop at Sainsburys, because our cupboards and fridge were looking rather sad. The one thing we have found on this stretch of the Grand Union is the lack of decent deep moorings. We had hoped to moor at Greenford, near the Black Horse pub, but once again the moorings were taken up by boats that had been there when we went down to Little Venice more than a couple of weeks ago, so they are now officially continual moorers. So we ploughed onwards until 6pm, when we decided to stop on the Slough Arm over night. It has been a long day and we are both shattered now. I do not think either of us will have any problem sleeping tonight.