By Land or Sea

Our Canal Boat

In Oct of 07 we rented a canal boat (narrow boat) in England for a week.  There were 5 of us - it had two baths, 3 bedrooms, and a kitchen/living area.   It was powered by a 40 hp Isuzu diesel.

Here is Bill bringing it into one of the many locks.

Canal Boat

There are about 2500 canal boats in England.  They were originally used to haul freight around an extensive canal system.      Now many are privately owned and some used as live aboards.   Many are for rent by the week or longer. 

Ready to go

 We went with Black Prince Holidays   www.black-prince.com  and chose the Stourport Ring.  They are narrowboats, only about a foot narrower - and in our case, only about 2 feet shorter than the locks.

 There are some that are privagtely owned live aboards and some really beautiful old ones.

Narrow Boats

Nice Narrowboat

Here is a shot of us coming out of a tunnel with Worcester Cathedral in front of us.

Worcester Cathedral

Some of the tunnels are more than a half a mile long, many are short and just go under roads.

Bridge

 The openings are pretty narrow  - interesting steering into them.  like steering a pencil by pushing on its eraser.  Usually there is not much wind to contend with - if there is it gets trickier.  On my third try, I got into one without bumping either side - but bumping is not unusual.

Into a lock

We are coming out of a lock  here.

Lock exit

 The gates are manually operated,    two people got off and operated the gates -moving the boat up or down.  The doors weighed almost a ton, but smaller openings were operated to change the water levels.

Lock mechanism

A handle is used to open the small doors. 

The locals were friendly. 

Friendly locals

 Here we are going down a series of locks,

Going down

Tow marks

 We were going through the backyards of neighborhoods.

Nice Yard

 We were moving at about the same speed as the walkers - and there were many using the paths along the canal  - talked to a lot of them  - while passing some interesting places.

Walkers

 A great old iron walking bridge.

Iron Bridge

Beautiful Place

 Sometimes we tied up  near a pub.

Pub stop

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More Later