It’s almost end of June and we cruised out into nature. The initial journey from Broxbourne up to Harlow Town was, to put simply, sublime. It’s boaters paradise, now the bargee life started to make sense, even to me. River Stort is a natural river, no concrete slabs lining it or anything the like. Even though the water is considered ‘grey water’, meaning the shower & washing up water from boats is going into the river, River Stort’s water is very clean.

Some photos from the cruise and the mooring place we found in Harlow.

Some short film recordings of this magic cruise:

Just one remark regarding grey water: We’ve been very strict and use only biodegradable washing up, cleaning and hygiene products. This unfortunately is not always the case with fellow boaters. We’ve seen many Fairy Ultra’s on window sills, who knows what else is put down the drain. You can see straight away when the ‘Fairy Ultra’ boaters do their washing up, it bubbles much longer than the biodegradable one. Frankly, it’s a mystery why the Canal and River Trust (CRT) doesn’t hand out guidelines in that regard and encourage boaters to use biodegradable products. It should be a high priority, I think, it would be only beneficial for nature and future boaters!