Two mile tunnel in a narrowboat

Last year I wrote a blog about travelling through the Braunston tunnel, 2042 yards of wet darkness. This week we travelled through the even longer Blisworth tunnel. It is also known as “Two Mile tunnel” because at 3076 yards, it is nearly two miles long. It is the third longest navigable tunnel in the UK, the ninth longest in the world, and the longest two way tunnel, where boats can just pass each other at a squeeze. It can be a little nerve wracking when you are a mile from either entrance and you meet a boat coming towards you. But is is also very beautiful.

The photograph does not reflect reality because my iPhone gives a very long exposure. In reality all you can see is the bit ahead of the boat, lit by the headlight. Sometimes you get to see water running from the roof as it goes through the light, but sometimes all you can do is hear it before it splashes into your face.

Sounds scary? Well maybe a little, but is also an adventure, and if we didn’t have our own boat, is the sort of thing I would happily pay to do on a tour, We are very lucky to be able to spend so many months travelling by boat, because almost every day we come across something new and surprising. This week we have had this tunnel, an aqueduct with no railing between us and a long drop, a sculpture park, a lake. I took a day off to go to London to celebrate my big sister’s birthday. We had a tree fallen across the canal, that had to be chainsawed away to let us through.

Next week who knows what we will see. I’ll let you know.

July 29, 2022 0

How scary is a dark narrow tunnel half full of water, and over a mile long?

A week of adventures as always, travelling from near Market Harborough, down the Watford staircase locks, onto the Grand Union Main Line canal to Braunston, before heading south on the windy Oxford canal, to end up in Banbury. Mandy accidentally threw a windlass in the canal, and I retrieved it by magnet fishing. I leaned over too far and nearly fell into a lock, just saving myself by jumping down onto the boat. Most of the week has been warm sunshine but we are now back to icy cold, especially first thing each morning. I think the scariest bit this week has been the long Braunston tunnel, 2000m of dark wet claustrophobia.

Believe it or not from the photo, this tunnel is just wide enough for two narrowboats, and we met five of them coming the other way. The noises as we bumped and scraped past each other, echoed in the gloom and added to the atmosphere. Doing a long tunnel is a bit like watching a horror film. You do your best to enjoy it at the time, but the relief when it finishes is wonderful!

We are having a few days moored up in Banbury. A chance to fill up the shopping, do the laundry and rest. I also popped into London on the train for dinner with some workmates from my last job. I have not seen them in person since 2019 (pre pandemic) and it was really good to catch up. I was a little concerned that I would have nothing to say, being so far away from work gossip these days, but it was not a problem, and over a lot of wine and steaks, we solved most of the world’s problems.

Next week, we are travelling further south, past Oxford and onwards.

I’d love to hear, do you do anything that scares you?

April 1, 2022 0

Going underground

We have been in several tunnels this week. We started with the famous Harecastle tunnel, north of Stoke on Trent. It is a 2600m tunnel and takes about 40 minutes to drive a boat through in the dark. Fortunately I am not claustrophobic.

The second is much less known. Froghall tunnel is at the end of the Caldon, one of the most beautiful canals in the UK, if a little narrow. The tunnel is just 70m long but unfortunately less than 10% of narrowboats can fit through it. Our boat was just too tall.

The third was a railway tunnel near Leek. It turned out that for Bank holiday weekend, the Churnet Valley Railway was holding a real ale festival, and we moored our boat right by one of the stations. Beer, steam trains and narrowboats all in the same place. Lucky me!

Our final canal tunnel of the week was also near Leek and was about 120m long. We moored up for the night at a lake right by the tunnel entrance. Really really beautiful

I usually find some kind of helpful life lesson in my travels each week. Perhaps something about darkness, or light at the end of the tunnel? Perhaps something about the bear who came across a hill and could not go over, under or around it, and had to go through it? Or perhaps this week I can simply be grateful for my retirement that allows me to see such wonders.

Have a great weekend.

September 3, 2021 1

Is there light at the end of the tunnel, or is that a narrowboat coming towards you?

I have been walking through a couple of canal tunnels this week. Some of the most exciting and scary times on a narrowboat are travelling through tunnels. Most canal tunnels have very little space around the boat profile. This is deliberate because when the canals were designed, the boats were pulled by horses, and the horses would not go through tunnels, so the boats were “legged” through by two strong men, lying on either side of the barge roof and using their legs to “walk” along the tunnel. These days we have engines and we have to steer 50-60 foot long boats through the tunnel with often less than a foot space on either side.

There are two keys to success. Don’t be overconfident and don’t panic. Fluid mechanics give us a big advantage because the water being pushed either side of the boat as you travel through the tunnel, gives pressure to keep the boat away from the walls. But if you are overconfident and drive too fast, or if you panic and over-react to each boat movement, then before you know it, you are bouncing the boat off the walls side to side.

I wonder of there is an analogy. Here in the UK the Covid numbers have fallen right back. Deaths and hospitalisations are very low, since so many of the population are now vaccinated. Society is reopening, with shops, bars, gyms, cinemas now back or soon to be back. In a month or so we will be nearly normal. There is talk about Coronavirus treatment in pills taken at home next winter. It really feels that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But two things could get in the way. One would be overconfidence. If we relax the rules too fast, give up on social distancing, refuse to self isolate, then it will be back. The other would be to panic. There are some horrible new variants out there, but the science is working and we can steer our way through this perilous tunnel.

Have wonderful weekend. Let me know hat you think.

April 23, 2021 2