Watford Locks

We have a week on Debdale booked for the end of October, and my parents are going to join me for a few days. I thought we might go up through Braunston, onto the Leicester Line, up the Watford Locks and see how far we get, before turning back.

So I wanted to check the opening times for the Watford Locks. First stop was Waterscape (which seems to have a brash new look), where I downloaded the boater's guide to the GU Leicester Line. The guides are pretty good, because they're constantly updated with the latest stoppages and so on.

The first thing I noticed was that they'd managed to get the name of Watford Locks wrong. They must think they're in Ireland or something.

The next thing was that the only opening times given were from the 1 to 30 October, followed by a stoppage from 5 November, for dredging of the side ponds. Now, if we go that way we'll be going up Watford on 30 October, and coming back down on 31. But what's going on from 30 October to 4 November?

I phoned to find out. It took BW a couple of hours to come up with the answer, but (if you're interested) it's that the locks are open as usual, but there's no lock keeper on duty so you have to make sure yourself that there's no-one already in the staircase before starting.

I think I'll check with the lockie on the day we go up, just to make sure.