My preference would be to park at Heybridge Basin and head up towards Chelmsford. See how far you get and turn round when you are running out of time - it's down hill on the way back! Parking at the Basin in the Daisy Meadow public car park is free.
The towpath was cleared recently along the whole length because the weekend before last there was a sponsored walk on behalf of a local charity involving 1827 people. Last Tuesday/Wednesday we cut the grass round all the locks. The only parts where there may be a problem is around Cuton Lock, where there was some dredging with black sticky mud dropped on part of the towpath, and just east of Hoe Mill Lock, where we did a temporary repair to a piece of towpath that had slipped away. Above Paper Mill there are no public facilities until you get to Chelmsford, although near Barnes Mill there is a pub/restaurant and Chelmer Village Shopping Centre (look for the Asda signs about ¼ mile away). Paper Mill is halfway along the 14 mile canal and there you can find a tea room and toilets. Tesco is a couple of miles up from the Basin with cafe, toilets and access from the canal. Heybridge Basin has two pubs (Old Ship and Jolly Sailor) as well as a tea room owned by Wilkins (the Tiptree Jam Company) where you can sit out on their decking while you admire the view of the estuary - don't forget to have the jam with your toasted teacake! DaveD -----Original Message----- From: Enodreven Yahoo <[email protected]> To: canals-l...@ya hoogroups.com Sent: Sun, 17 May 2009 16:40 Subject: [canals-list] Chelmer Hi, We have been looking at taking our bikes down to the river Chelmer ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
