The weather right now is just about perfect for being on a narrowboat. We are waking up to cold crisp mornings with mist rising off the canal. We are getting really beautiful sunrises, sunsets and dramatic moons. During the day the temperature is rising to low twenties – warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.
Narrowboaters are notorious for complaining about the weather. It is either too hot because we live in a tin can, or too cold, because our fingers are going numb driving the boat. It is either too wet, so we don’t want to move the boat, or it is too dry, with water levels falling. It is either too windy, making turning impossible, or too still , encouraging biting insects. We are never happy.
But this week we are. So many smiling faces as we have passed fellow boaters on the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canals this week. In truth, while I complain, I love living on a narrowboat in all weathers. But this is a very special time of year. Peaceful and very very beautiful.
Thinking back to pre-retirement, I would have been busy in an air conditioned office, missing the weather completely. I loved working but this is so much better.
It has been the quietist summer on British canals for many years. Volunteers from the Canal & River Trust tell me that boat numbers are down a third on last year. There are many reasons for this including a post Covid desire to go abroad, prices being too high from hire companies, and the very wet weather. However that has all changed since the beginning of September and this week on the Llangollen canal has been as busy as any I can remember,
The Llangollen is notoriously a very busy canal and we would not usually have chosen to travel it till later in the month. Often when the kids have gone back to school, retirees get their boats out of the marinas and busy the network. But we had the opportunity to travel with Mandy’s two brothers and their partners, who we’re hiring a boat for a week. It has been a lovely week. We have been down to the very end of the pretty Montgomery Canal, and then along to Llangollen, over the famous Pontcyscyllte aqueduct.
For some reason I don’t understand it is not just old folk like us on the canal this week. Every hire firm seems to have been fully booked for the first time this year, and the cut is full of holiday boaters., We have met groups from America, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden as well as English and Welsh. Why are they all travelling this week?
It has made some of the navigating a little tricky. There was one moment where I thought there would be a standoff between the queue of westbound boats who could not get into a single track tunnel because of boats coming the other way, and a queue of eastbound boats who could not leave the basin after the tunnel because of boats on the aqueduct coming the other way.
Having said that, it has been a really lovely week, full of beauty, adventure, engineering and family. Not a bad way to spend a week… and my life.
There are certain jobs on a narrowboat that are not very nice. Pumping out the toilet tank is perhaps the worst. But pulling weed and rubbish from around the prop comes a close second. And this week’s canal from Chester to Ellesmere Port is one of the weediest in the country.
If you drive through the vegetation at normal speed, the propellor turns and pulls the weed around it. This causes the steering to fail, the boat to go much slower, and even the engine to stall. To avoid this, there are techniques we have learnt. Drive at speed up to the patch of weed, and then take it out of gear. The boat hopefully floats through the weed unscathed. Or if you do get some weed, try a hard reverse to “spin” it off again. But if neither of these works, you have to moor up the boat, lift the deck boards, climb into the engine bay, unscrew the weed hatch cover, reach down into the murky cold water and pull the weed off the prop and rudder. Fortunately this week I have only had to do that a few times.
It was worth the effort though, because we were able to moor for two nights in the middle of the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port.
I have written in a previous blog about nights in the museum, but suffice to say it is one of our favourite moorings in the mornings and evenings when no-one is around and we have the place to ourselves. It is also a place full of history, where the Shropshire Union Canal joins the huge Manchester Ship Canal and the River Mersey. In times past it would have been a dirty, noisy dock with hundreds of workers and surrounded by heavy industry. A quiet place today, full of memories.
My son Rob says he loves most of my blogs but not the ones where I complain about something that has annoyed me this week. Sorry Rob but I don’t like weed.
It has been a lovely week on the cut (canals). After last week’s heatwave it has settled down to around 21°C each day which is very pleasant. At the same time we are beginning to notice it is not fully light first thing in the morning, and it is dark when we go to bed. There have been a few mornings where it is cold enough for a mist to rise from the canal when I take the dogs out. And some leaves are just beginning to turn brown at the edges.
August is too early for autumn. It is still the school summer holidays in England and many of the crops are still growing in the fields. But it is the end of summer, and there is a flavour in the air of what is to come.
I love days like these. Warm enough for shorts but not too warm. Sunrises and sunsets. When we set off in March it seemed as if this cruise would last forever, but we are already beginning to plan how we can get in everything we want before the end of this year’s adventure – our annual visit to the boat museum in Ellesmere Port, a week sharing a holiday on the Llangollen with Mandy’s brothers and partners, one last trip on the Shroppie and Staffs & Worcester.
The important thing for me, and not my natural instinct, is to put that planning aside and enjoy every day. Being retired is like being on a narrowboat. It is not about the destination, it is about loving the journey, whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn.
This week we are back properly cruising the canals of the UK and have travelled down the beautiful Macclesfield Canal (the Macc) to rejoin the Trent and Mersey.
The Macc is quiet compared with the great canal & river thoroughfares such as the T&M, the Grand Union or the Thames. It has a reputation for being shallow, which is probably well deserved given closures in recent years, but this year we have had plenty of rain, and while some edges can be shallow, we did not find it too difficult to navigate. There is just one hire company and so most of our fellow boaters were either continuous cruisers like ourselves, or based in Lyme View marina, near Wilmslow.
After nearly six weeks with little movement it has been wonderful for us and the dogs to get back to what we love – pootling along and enjoying the journey. Sadly one of the reasons for our delay was vets tests for our dog Ziggy who it turns out has advanced cancer of the pancreas and bladder. There is nothing to be done so while as yet she is showing few symptoms, we have decided to make her last months as much fun as possible. That means cruising on the canals, cuddling and eating sausages.
We have three weeks from today to get to Ellesmere on the Llangollen canal, where we will meet up with Mandy’s two brothers and their wives who have hired a boat to share a holiday with us. We are really looking forward to that. Three weeks should be plenty of time, hopefully enough to also allow us a side trip up to Chester.
We are of course somewhat subdued with Ziggy’s news, but we are still loving the boating life, as is she.
This milestone is next to Marple locks on the Peak Forest Canal. I like it because it represents much of our life on a narrowboat. We travel. We see places. We plan our routes. But ultimately we have no destination. It is the journey we enjoy. That is so different to travelling in a car, where the destination is everything, and the journey is just about getting there.
And by enjoying the journey, we discover more. This week we have found wonderful moorings, just avoided big delays from closures, and been on adventures.
Starting with the adventures, I walked along a long old tramway that used to carry limestone from the Peak District down to the canal. I had a day out in Buxton, the highest town in England with history back to the Romans. And I walked to the foot of the Marple Aqueduct, the highest stone aqueduct in the UK.
The canal stoppages included a whole stretch of the Macclesfield canal which is currently closed due to the canal leaking. This is extremely serious because not only could it cause flooding of nearby land, but it could also lead to the whole of the canal draining and leaving us boaters marooned. We also found ourselves stopped halfway up the Marple lock flight, when a “pound” between two locks had drained due to a paddle being left up. And when the lock keepers let more water down to help us, the water flooded a brand new house that has been built next to the flight while it has been closed for the past ten months. Someone will need a word with that surveyor!
And we stayed at two of my most favourite moorings on the whole canal network. Bugsworth basin is like a dock at the end of the Peak Forest Canal, near Whaley Bridge, with space for up to forty narrowboats. Originally it would have been used to transship the limestone from the tramway onto boats to carry around the country. These days it is full of wild flowers and geese. So it has a dramatic mixture of old ruins and nature. Also a very good pub.
My other favourite mooring is further up that canal on an isolated stretch, with an incredible view down into the valley at a village called Strines. Apart from the occasional hiker or cyclist we have the place to ourselves, and it is just so very chilled. A beautiful midpoint on our journey to nowhere.
We completed the Rochdale and Ashton canals this week. Both have pretty terrible reputations as they go through some of the most deprived areas of Manchester. But what is the truth? Let’s consider some of the stories you hear.
1. They are really hard work. True. The Ashton out of Manchester is just lock after lock. The Rochdale has very heavy lock gates and some of the paddles require super human strength. Some of the pounds between the locks drain all too easily, leaving the boat grounded. Everything is doable but it is hard work.
2. They are very beautiful. True. I was not expecting quite how beautiful considering the canals travel through areas that once were heavy industry. Calderdale between Sowerby Bridge and the summit is particularly lovely, as is the top end of the Ashton as it joins the Peak Forest.
3. They are full of junk. Sadly true. We lots count of shopping trolleys, items of clothing, plastic bottles in the canals. The trick is to keep the boat in the middle of the canal, but even then we found ourselves stuck on silt banks and with a coat wrapped around our propellor.
4. There are lots of dodgy characters. Partly true. As with all city centre canals there are occasional drug users and inquisitive kids, but we found that if we engaged with them as human beings there was no trouble,
5. The canals are hard to navigate. Mostly false. So long as you don’t try to go too fast, stay away from the junk, and fill up empty pounds, it is not so difficult.
6. They keep getting blocked. True. Failing locks and falling trees caused five or six blockages while we were on these canals. One or two of them looked as if they might delay us for weeks. The fact is that the Canal and River Trust no longer do preventative maintenance. They just fix things when they break. I understand they have no money but I think that is a mistake.
7. You can’t find somewhere to moor. True. The canals are very silted so it is not possible to moor by most towpaths. There are numerous locks with no mooring between them. The good news however is that we found some fantastic moorings. Hats off to the Hopwood Arms for fantastic fresh pizza and allowing me to use their water tap to fill my boat.
8. They are low on water. False right now. By reputation these canals can run out of water because the locks leak so badly, and we did experience this a little but in general it has been a very wet year. Bad for our moods but good for keeping the canals filled.
9. No one uses these canals. True for the Rochdale. The Ashton Canal forms part of the “Cheshire Ring” and so gets a fair few boats, but the Rochdale was very very quiet. We saw a few hire boats between Sowerby Bridge and Hebden Bridge, but between Todmorden and Central Manchester no more than six or seven boats travelling like us.
10. They are good to do once but that’s all. False. I must admit when we had finished the long final day into Manchester on the Rochdale I did say “never again”. But I think the pluses make it worth it. Lovely dramatic canals with a great mix of countryside and old industry. We will be back…. one day.
We have cruised most of the canals and rivers in the UK in recent years. There are over 2000 miles of navigation and every one is different. But this week we have been along the Calder and Hebble and that really is unique.
From Fall Ing lock near Wakefield, to Sowerby Bridge, the canal and river navigation is just 23 miles long, built in around 1770 to connect the mill towns of Yorkshire to the rest of the country.
Let me tell you about three things you will not find anywhere else. The first is the short length of the locks. They can just about fit our narrowboat at 57.5 ft, but any longer and you really are in danger of getting stuck or flooded. There are other canals known for short locks, including the Leeds and Liverpool that we have recently left, but none as consistently short as the Calder and Hebble.
The second uniqueness is the Guillotine lock at Salterhebble. Most locks have pairs of wooden or steel gates that close together to hold the water back. Sometimes these are electrically operated but this one also operates as a guillotine, a single metal gate that goes up and down. It was installed after a road widening meant there was no room to keep normal gates. I have read that there are a few other guillotines around the country but as far as I am concerned this is unique.
The third unique thing is the “Hebble spike”, a piece of 3” x 2” shaped hardwood that is used to open and close lock sluices. I have no idea why these were used when this canal was built, rather than the windlasses we use on almost every other canal, but it has certainly been a unique experience to use this week. It is hard work!
I have enjoyed the week of uniqueness. Next week we travel the Rochdale canal. Maybe not so unique but even more of a challenge. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Most of the time as narrowboaters we are “ditch dwellers”. The canals we navigate are surprisingly shallow – say three to four feet deep . So if you fall in you can just stand up and you will normally be fine. For this reason we do not wear life jackets on the canals. But rivers are something more challenging.
Liverpool docks this year
Rivers are more dangerous because they have a current, may have a tide, and can be much deeper. They are also unpredictable. For instance flat bottomed narrowboats do not have much protection against strong lateral gusts of wind.
So on rivers we do usually wear light life jackets that would automatically inflate if we fell in the water. Unfortunately I found out this week that they might not work. I read an article on a boaters’ update that told me that the water detector has a relatively short life of just a few years and then need replacing. I also discovered that they can set themselves off where there is condensation in the air over winter.
So I checked our life jackets and found that both water detectors were out of date, and one also needed a new compressed gas bottle.
The good news is that replacing these is neither difficult or expensive, but it was still quite a shock to find that things we were confidently thinking could save our lives may well have failed when we needed them.
We have been boating for many many years but we are very much still learning. Every day is a school day, and this lesson could well save a life.
We have spent the week travelling the Leeds and Liverpool canal across West Lancashire, finishing up in Reedley Marina, near Burnley. We have moored in a marina because it is a safe place to leave the boat while we spend ten days back up in Scotland. Despite spending more than half the year living on our narrowboat, we still own a house for the winter months and have returned to get a few jobs done. I have a dental appointment, a blood test and a big birthday to celebrate.
Narrowboat Thuis in Reedley Marins
Arriving back at the house has made me think of the five things I prefer, living in bricks and mortar to on the water:
1. A house is so much bigger. On a boat we have to think carefully before acquiring anything because the space is so limited
2. Our house has a bath. The shower on the boat is great and after a day’s boating the water is toasty warm, but I do like a long soak in the evening.
3. When things break it is usually less catastrophic. There are things I need to fix around the house but they are not critical. When I reversed the narrowboat into a wall this week, the rudder was knocked from the “cup” it sits in and the whole boat became unsteerable. Fortunately my son Martin was with us, and jumped into the canal to reseat it.
4. We have a car in the drive. When we are on our long cruises we don’t use our car because it is simply too difficult to keep moving the car to be near the boat. This may be better for the environment, but it does make things more difficult when we need to get anywhere away from the canal.
5. The full fibre broadband to our house is super fast. We do like to have fast internet, for browsing or streaming. On the boat we have three different mobile networks on our phones and the wifi router to try to make sure we have good access, but sometimes in cuttings and out of town, it can be a problem.
There are also good reasons that living on a narrowboat is better than living in a house.
1. Life on a boat is simpler. We don’t have so much “stuff” and we have learnt that we don’t need it. We shop locally. We talk about simple things such as where we are going tomorrow, and what to have for tea.
2. The views are stunning. Our house is on a Main Street with road noise. Our boat can be in a different mooring every day, Last week we passed through some pretty run down industrial canals in Blackburn and Burnley, but we still found one of the prettiest moorings between the two towns, on an embankment, next to a golf course, with incredible views across to the Pennines.
3. Exercise is part of our lives. We don’t have to think about needing to go to the gym or for a run. After 21 locks, we are pretty exhausted and it feels good.
4. The dogs are more settled. Lulu in particular, runs around the house sniffing at walls and barking at pigeons. On the boat she just jumps onto the sofa next to Mandy, and cuddles.
5. The community on the canals and rivers is more friendly. We have good neighbours in Scotland, but travelling along, locking together or just meeting people on the towpath, everyone wants to help, everyone has a story to tell. By nature I am pretty antisocial, but not when we are on the boat.
I guess we are very lucky to have the house and a narrowboat. But if I had to choose, I would choose living on a boat. It is a good life.
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