They come slowly at first. Sometimes there are none for miles. Then they begin to build; 22 in the first 40 miles, 26 in the second. By the time I was down to my final 20 miles or so of my last week's progress, there were 34, with 13 bridges over the venerable River Thames in the last five miles alone, the final few almost tumbling over each other and leaving me breathless as Stealaway sallied out of the inner Pool of London under Tower Bridge for the choppy swell of the last reach to Limehouse Basin and the sanctuary of the still water of the cut.
In the past three months I have passed under thousands of bridges, each one numbered or named so one can pinpoint where one is to within a few hundred yards. Being artificial cuts, existing landowners needs had to be accommodated by so many bridges. Rivers, especially big ones, by contrast form natural boundaries and riparian landowners, and sometimes communities such as West and East Stockwith astride the Trent, or Moulsford and South Stoke on the Thames, are neatly estranged.
Until 1750 and the building of the first bridge at Westminster, even London itself had only one permanent crossing, a far cry from the day last week when Stealaway and I were riding the morning ebb and motoring through a still sleepy central London, on show and gloriously lit in orange by an early sun seemingly just for us. It was a charged ending to an emotional week that began in Oxford under a cloud of physical and spiritual fatigue.
With the bubbling live water of the river under us, my mood lightened as we neared London, passing the old country towns of Abingdon, Wallingford and Goring before reaching Reading. Then the dripping wealth of Sonning, Henley, Marlow, Cookham and Maidenhead. After Windsor, the riches dribble away behind floods of bungalows and chalets that reach almost to Teddington. Unlike the Severn and Trent, whose high natural banks and levees often obscure the country of the river valley, the Thames has an open aspect, with villages and small towns embracing the river and demonstrating the ancient power of this primary water course.
It took just three days to negotiate the 90 miles and 30 locks to the head of the tidal Thames at Teddington Lock. Initially I planned to take the late afternoon ebb and glide through to Limehouse and be greeted by chums on the waterfront at the Barley Mow boozer. But I had ignorantly been working with the time of high water at London Bridge, rather than at Teddington where it occurs up to an hour later. I asked the lockkeeper if he had any advice and tips for the trip.
"My advice," he said, "is don't do it. Catch the morning tide by leaving here tomorrow at 5.30am."
Gulp! He explained that, if I went as planned, I would be punching the flood tide - moving against me at three knots - for at least an hour. Then when I eventually made it into central London, I would have to contend with tourist boats and disco boats throwing out fearsome wakes and washes. Stealaway may have a sturdy 10mm-thick base plate but she ain't got no keel, which makes riding swells and waves a tricky business.
"Don't do it, tonight," said the lockkeeper, "especially if this is your first time through, and you are on your own. Take it in the morning when you will be running with the ebb for the full transit. The river is flatter in the morning and all those tourist boats will be tied up."
Well, what's the point of asking for advice and then ignoring it ("You wouldn't be the first," said the keeper)? So I hastily recast the celebration for the following evening, and informed the duty officer at the Port of London Authority, which controls movement on the tidal Thames between Teddington and Southend, and the British Waterways keeper at Limehouse of the change of plan. I then spent a delightful bonus day in the sun, reading and musing in the front cockpit of Stealaway with my herbs and Busy Lizzies - something I have managed fewer than half a dozen times in the entire trip.
Next day and it was up with the dawn. By 6am I was motoring past a slumbering Richmond. By 7am, I was in the middle of the Boat Race course at Hammersmith, dodging a few early morning rowers that were the only other craft moving on the river. By 8am, I had passed Battersea Gardens and just under Chelsea Bridge met the first commercial craft - a river taxi that obligingly slowed as I past though that did not stop the swell as he powerfully punched the tide and had Stealaway pitching and rolling for five minutes.
By 8.30am I had passed the House of Parliament and, having called Charing Cross control where there are major bridgeworks, passed through the centre span of the railway bridge. They came thick and fast now - Waterloo, Blackfriars road, then rail, the new Millennium Bridge with early commuters tramping their way to the City, Southwark, London and finally, Stealaway having stolen her way midstream passed HMS Belfast and a destroyer moored along side the World War II battleship, Tower Bridge.
It was an utterly exhilarating three hours; a truly fitting climax to this journey. London looked magnificent from the river, easily the most exciting urban space I had encountered on the trip and it was great to be back. I have my doubts about the Old Smoke when it comes to choosing to live in the countryside or a city, but if you have to be in a city, London is the one to be in.
After Limehouse, another couple of days on the Grand Union through north and west London has brought me back to where it all started at such a galloping pace here at Harefield Marina in Hertfordshire. So how's it been? If I am honest, it's too early to tell. Stealaway has behaved wonderfully well, running eight hours, at least five days a week, for nearly 13 weeks. The only problem has been a bit of blowback from the injectors on the engine that was easily fixed with little more than a bicycle spanner. Even the hot water has come back, though intermittently. The boat has been an extremely cosy and comfy home, always warm, dry and snug when I've come in from a day's rain and wind. If the world were to go pear-shaped for me, I know I could easily live aboard her.
It's been a challenging journey to do on my own, punishing in a way through following such a rigid schedule. I've met good people in the linear community of the cut, and personally I am more weathered, leaner and fitter than I have been for a long time though alas have singularly failed to give up cigarettes (back to the hypnotist, I fear).
What of wider conclusions? Too early to call in any depth but England is a full fat, fertile, fecund place where it is easy to be pleasurably alone if one wants to be. Who know why we get such pleasure from the apparently random processes of birds, trees and flowers?
There is an obvious north-south fault line extending, as far as I could see, between and either side of a rule from Birmingham to Leicester. This is not to say there isn't poverty in the south nor riches in the north, but the noisy southern wealth contrasts with the silence of northern scarcity, and the divide between the south-east and the north-west is shockingly stark.
In an anecdotal way, it was interesting to consider how well some of the former northern mill towns, where there has traditionally been a high level of female employment, have fared compared with the old steel and coal towns, where the workforce was mostly male. Women seemed to have adapted better to new work, while young men appear feckless in a world that has been on show during the recent blurring of the palaces of Beckham and Buckingham.
In what might just be a coincidence, Her Majesty and I last week visited Kingston upon Thames. Site of the coronation of seven Saxon Kings, Kingston dubs itself a royal borough of Greater London. There is the old coronation stone near the grimy Guildhall but no one visits it. People come to Kingston for the shopping and were only mildly distracted by being corralled by hundreds of police officers on duty for hours in their best uniforms while a police chopper hovered above the town for two hours. The Queen stayed for 25 minutes, out of view for 20 of them.
As Her Majesty and Phillip, looking like an agitated glove puppet, swept into town in their glass-topped Rolls Royce, I smiled at the Queen, looking lovely in lemon. I'm not sure she saw me but the rictus seemed to mollify the policeman in front who'd been giving me the hairy eyeball, presumably because I was neither clapping, nor cheering, nor waving a little plastic Union Flag. Shoppers had refused to buy Union Jacks for a quid, or purple jubilee flags for two quid, from touts and that seemed to be a problem for the police and their handlers.
Fifteen minutes before the great arrival, two burly bobbies bearing armfuls of little plastic flags proceeded to hand them out to everyone. Some people got two - after all they were free. Then the press and TV moved in: 'Wave your flags,' shouted the camer men and women. And the crowd duly did, for they love being on telly more than anything, and the media got its 'noddies' to cut in at a later stage to show just how patriotic people are when it comes to the monarchy. Does all this flag waving of the past months mean that? I sincerely doubt it, though the flags themselves can't be denied. People want to express something, but what is it? I guess that's part of the coalescing to be dome.
Finally, thanks to all who have read my dispatches. It's been a first to have a running part-work solely for the web, and I've looked forward to sitting down and writing, the discipline helping to shape each week. Thanks too to those who have sent me emails from across the globe. The immediacy of responses is very exciting. As is their tenor, by and large. It seems to me, after years of dealing with Letters to the Editor that people write to newspapers to complain while emailers are much more positive. Good on yer!
· Observer journalist Mike Holland has been writing weekly online dispatches from his canal journey around England. You can email Mike at michael.holland4@btinternet.com
