Introduction
My mum and I are walking parts of the Grand Union Canal. On 21 March 2008, we walked a section from Brentford to Bull Bridge, then into Hayes where we got a couple of buses back to my parents' house.
This walk ended at the same place as the last canal walk we did, so I'd been hoping to get a sharp picture of the factory chimney that looked great a couple of weeks before. Unfortunately the wind didn't co-operate, but more later.
Brentford
From Brentford station we walked down to the canal.
We followed the canal path through Brentford (which largely involved going back the way we'd come except along the canal instead of the road, but never mind).
The canal
The canal tended toward picturesque (yeah, I know, near Brentford?) with actual trees and such.
Then the towpath passed through a huge warehouse structure built over a canal dock. It appears to still be owned by British Waterways (and you'd have some difficulty converting it to luxury canalside apartments), although there wasn't much going on in the water; just a crowd of logs floating there. The day was extremely windy and the whole structure made really loud, disturbing, and unusual creaking and cracking noises. Still, nothing actually fell off it while we were inside.
After that the canal continued with various buildings on our side. The towpath crossed over at one point.
A very tall bridge took the confusingly-named London Underground over the canal.
I didn't mention the weather but it was, um, variable: rain and grey and a little sun.
A rather bizarre sign by the towpath attracted our interest: 'British Waterways Kerr Cup Pile Driving Competition. Prize Length Of Piling 1959.' Hopefully somebody's pressing for that sport to be included in the 2012 Olympics. Opposite, a stretch of industrial premises began.
A flight of six locks took us by the side of Hanwell Insane Asylum (no, it isn't still operating - I think it had largely been knocked down for flats). Then we encountered an industrial-archaeology landmark: an aqueduct takes the canal over a railway line from Southall to the docks at Brentford, in the same place that a road crosses the canal.
Shorly after we came upon a British Waterways canal dredger named, appropriately, 'Pride of Slough'. I don't know if Slough really takes great pride in digging muck out of the bottom of canals, but let's face it, they've not got much else to write home about.
We continued toward Southall and the rain really set in; we sheltered by a hedge from a serious downpour, although I emerged briefly to take a few pictures.
Dry again, we continued toward the Nestlé factory that marked the end of the last walk, and this one too. Unfortunately despite lots of trying I wasn't able to get the shot I'd wanted; the time of day was about right, but strong wind meant the steam wasn't blowing in the direction I needed. I took a few other pictures of those chimneys, even so.
That's it! Thanks for reading this far. :)