I had a very early start to get the last chunk of the Royal Canal Way finished off. I arrived in Enfield by train at 7:15 and was greeted with a heavy mist as is normally the case at this time of year. The train journey was uneventful, even if I did feel a bit odd among the commuters in my hiking gear

Anyway, without much ado I sorted myself out and settled into the hike. I backtracked a couple of hundred metres to cross the railway and the canal to get onto the tow-path and then got moving. The disused signal box at Enfield looked quite ghostly in the mist and half-light of the morning.

It was quite unusual for me to see if from this angle after having passed it literally thousands of times on the train but this walk in general was about seeing things from a new perspective for me.

There were a few interesting flowers about but the light was still quite dull for taking pictures. With the thick mist there was little point in taking pictures of anything else so I mostly ignored the camera and got on with walking.

I resolved to make Kilock before stopping as it was a good 13 – 14 km away as there was little point in getting into a habit of regular stops early in the walk. I reckoned on having to do 40 km to get to the end of the official Royal Canal Way at Ashtown and figured if I could get there a little earlier that I might be able to make it a little further. By 8:30, I had reached my step goal for the day of 10,000 steps and I still had a long long way to go.

With about 8km done today, I finally hit the end of the Long Level – a 32km stretch with no locks. I had very few locks to pass today – I think I counted about 5 for the day. Most of the locks on this side of the summit are in a group near Killucan and there are 10 in the last 8 km to the sea. Most of the locks I passed today were to be double-chambered affairs – including this one.

The mist really was hanging on this morning and by now my feet were getting quite wet from the heavy dew on the grass. Needless to say, I hadn’t bothered bringing gaiters which I had taken for the other tree sections and not needed. By about 9:30 the sun was making a feeble attempt to get through the mist but not really doing terribly well.

By now, I wasn’t far from Kilcock when I came to Allen bridge. Kilcock is quite spread out and there was a nice walk through the back-end of the town to get to the main harbour which is by the new railway station.

After another lock and an annoying road crossing, I was at the harbour and I sat down for a well-earned cup of coffee and a chocolate bar. They have a well-organised canoe-polo club in Kilcock and I sat opposite their club-house for my rest.