At last we’re off – heading to new waterways, new horizons and new adventures.
It seems like we’ve been treading water for the past few months, waiting for the London Marathon to come and go, waiting for the date for our welding work to be done – which has been literally lifechanging. We’ve been so lucky to use that time to catch up with floating and static friends, to work hard too, and now we are setting off travelling once more, and it feels exhilarating.
Spending hours each day moving gently through new scenes, new views, villages and towns; waking to new places with great regularity after months of staying put, sometimes for 14 days at a time, is uplifting. It feels like we are taking huge gulps of energising fresh air after months of static or shallow breathing.
Last night we were moored in a wooded cutting, quiet and peaceful; other nights last week we encountered nights of traffic noise from the nearby A5, from distant trains and who knows where we will choose to moor tonight…
We are headed to the Lancaster Canal – going tidal and trying en route to sort out our final requirement for our crossing – some marine distress flares which seem a tougher requirement than we first thought. Yes, like virtually everything, they are available on the internet, but containing explosives they have to be transported by approved couriers so two £15 flares demand £70 of transportation! I think we’ll wait until we get near the coast and try again.
Tides demand bookings for tidal crossings, so we have a booking for crossing the River Douglas and River Ribble of 2 July. Before then we have a long-awaited family engagement in the area of Pennington Flash in the Greater Manchester area.
Getting there in a car would take about 2 hours and 20 minutes from where we now are if you used the M6 toll, or about 3 hours on the M1 and M6. Going our route is going to take us between 2 weeks and 4 weeks which is much more civilised, and gets us there in good time. The pleasure of having family on board to share, even if only for a few hours, the delights of the waterways we are blessed to enjoy 24/7 is just wonderful.
From where we had our welding done in Northamptonshire, we calculated (with the help of canalplan and canal guides) 172 miles and 89 locks to the family meeting point. That takes in 122 miles of narrow canals with 76 narrow locks, the remainder being broad locks and miles on broad canals. We travel 4 miles underground, through 6 tunnels – Braunston, Newbold, Harecastle, Barnton, Saltersford and Preston Brook. Our journey takes in seven canals – the Grand Union, the Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham and Fazeley, Trent and Mersey, onto the private Bridgewater Canal, and finally the Leeds and Liverpool. All of this is familiar territory, areas travelling before over the years, but it’s always changing by season and weather, new views, wildlife and people to see.
Our newest crew member has taken to this life with aplomb. She tried sitting on the hatch at roof level but the convex slope to our mega hatch combined with the breeze in her face wasn’t to her liking.
Instead, she has found her own favourite spot – just where Cola our old boat dog used to sit. She sits looking out of her porthole at the feet of whoever is on the tiller, and watches the world go by. Locks, tunnels, boats alongside, ducks, swans, everything interests her but nothing seems to alarm her. She is in short, a delightful companion afloat. This weekend we have another crewmate on board, so she like us, will enjoy the invigorating company of a 5-year-old too.
After our family meet up we will head off onto waterways new to us, but until then, there’s time to enjoy just travelling again, getting into the daily routine of travelling, mooring, walking in new places, discovering new sights and stories in the places where we pause, and deciding whether they demand a little more of our time, or whether we should move on. What we will find en route is just one of the many little excitements of slow motion travel, the unexpected is always waiting for us somewhere ahead. This week it was the ingenuity of pool players who live on small boats!
As the old proverb says A day of travelling will bring a basketful of learning, about the world around us and ourselves. Baskets at the ready then!
Pickingupducks 