Peter's Waterways Blog Navigating the Olympic Waterways This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in June 2018, reporting on our first trip since Carpenters Road lock was opened.

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Interpretation board

If things had gone-to-plan, which with canals is the exception, one of our boats would have been in East London for the opening of Carpenters Road lock, with its unique guillotine gates, which now give enhanced access to the Olympic Park's Waterways. The restoration was organised by C&RT with some funding from IWA, and the lock was opened at the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2017, at the same time as our Festival of Water in Ilkeston. We had planned on travelling from London to Ilkeston, calling in to my cousins' (apostrophe correct) wedding approximately halfway. But in the end the arrangements didn't work out and both boats were at Ilkeston.

It was the next relistic opportunity, on the way to Cavalcade in May 2018 that we gave the necessary week's notice to book for Carpenters Road lock. During our half-hour wait for C&RT to arrive for their lockkeeping appointment, an Olympic Park official arrived on the bank to enquire why we were stopped in the Park, as we had been viewed on the television monitoring. It seems we had been the first boat in 2018 to navigate both the lock and the administrative system protecting it.

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Welcome ... but remember that £150

There is an unwelcoming environment for navigators around the Olympic Waterways with signs saying that no stopping or mooring is allowed, with potential £150 per day charges enforced by the same carparking company being used to persue errant moorers. This covers the old Bow Back Rivers and the once-tidal Waterworks River, now impounded behind Three Mills lock, built as part of the Olympic developments.

The one lockkeeping volunteer we met on the River Lee at Old Ford Lock said how easy it would be to respond to a phone call to work Carpenters Road, their nearest adjacent lock, for which they had already been trained. If navigators phoned with a half-hour's warning, they could have the lock ready. That would be much better service than the officially advertised system of a week's notice. Not to mention the official explaination that this had something to do with "security checks". It was first year of operations, so it could only get better.

Swans waiting for passengers

City Mill Lock

To find out whether it did get better, we booked a trip once more on our way to Cavalcade 2019, giving the necessary week's notice and this time entering the Olympic Waterways at City Mill Lock and leaving at Carpenters Road. This time C&RT completely lost the booking, and we had a complicated set of phone calls, eventually resulting in some permanent people from Docklands arriving to work the locks for us. As usual with C&RT bank-staff, they were brilliant, and one of them lived on a boat in London.

Fulbourne in Carpenters Road Lock

Passing under the radial gate

Peter Scott @peterjohnscott