Canal Boat — January 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat January 2018 57

LIVEABOARD

• and the less jumping precariously from
  one side of the canal to the other that you
  have to do - the better. Bring on single
  gates to all the narrow canals, I say.
  It’s a bit of an odd one, the south
  Stratford. Quite pretty, lots of countryside.
  A long aqueduct - my first! - at Edstone,
  going over a road and a pair of railway
  lines. Yet the locks are plentiful and once
  you get above Preston Bagot rather
  equally spaced out so that you’re neither
  cruising for any distance nor getting up
  through a flight. It’s a bit stop-start but on
  a pleasantly sunny day it’s an amiable way
  to pass the time.
  So good was progress in fact that where
  I’d planned to split the remaining 17 locks
  over two days, I instead made a rare
  Herculean effort and finished the lot in
  one, helped by almost every single lock
  being empty on my arrival and in many
  cases another boater coming out to leave
  the gate open for me as well. Before I knew
  it - well, mid-afternoon actually - I was
  back at Lapworth which I’d come
  through on the previous year’s cruise so
  this was now familiar territory; almost
  home in fact.
  Switching channels at the junction, my
  path was now down the Grand Union
  towards Warwick, Leamington and
  ultimately back to the Braunston area.
  After traversing the invariably soggy
  Shrewley Tunnel, there was just the small
  matter of Hatton’s 21 double-width locks
  to overcome.
  For this I enlisted Crew - the wonderfully
  energetic and effervescent Anna and Kath,
  two fellow video-bloggers and narrowboat
  liveaboards (search for “The Narrowboat
  Experience” on YouTube to see their
  channel) who even drove up from London
  to help me out.

That spirit of community and a ready

willingness to help a fellow boater is one

of the most marvellous things about

narrowboating, do you not agree? I’ve lost

count of the times that people, many of

whom I’ve never met before and likely

won’t meet again, have offered a hand at

one thing or another.

I recall when I began my canal life one of

the queries often received was about how

tricky it would be to cruise alone and truly

it hasn’t been hard at all. Certainly I’m in

good health and quite able to do any

obstacles encountered so far on my tod

but in many instances I haven’t needed to.

Thank you, lovely people of the cut.

With three of us aboard - and another

lovely day, thankfully - the locks were

despatched with relative ease and the

boat moored for a night at the Saltisford

Arm. We even had time to pop into

Warwick for a late lunch and a chinwag.

With the crew departed I was solo once

more the next day and onto the home

stretch, round Warwick, through

Leamington and out into the countryside.

Here I had one of those weird coincidences

you only seem to get on the canals when I

promptly met another boat vlogger, Tony

Saxby (“It’s A Narrowboat Life”). It lead to

an amusing moment as we both stood

with one hand on the tiller, the other

wielding a video camera, filming each

other as the boats crossed side by side in

a lock pound. Neither of us had known the

other was going to be there; for 2,000+

miles of canal, the cut surely is a small

world!

I’d forgotten how many little batches of

locks there are between Leamington and

Calcutt but the good fortune from the

Stratford seemed to have followed

because lock after lock was dealt with in

record time.

That said, there was an alarming joint

venture with another boat in some of

them; their method of lining up in a lock

was to go full tilt into it (and I really do

mean getting quite a lick on) until the bow

smacked into the cill, raising the boat up

and out of the water and then crashing

back. I was genuinely open-mouthed

watching this and thanked my lucky stars

each time that I went in second each time.

I can’t imagine this technique finds

favour in the CRT Handbook Of Good

Boating but it was amazing to watch - and

it made me feel much better about any

time I’ve ever gently bumped the end of

a lock.

Look! There’s the newly-dug out and

restored arm at Willow Wren Training, still

awaiting its first moorers when I went by.

Ahh! There’s Wigram’s Turn again, as I

heaved on the tiller for the sharp left

towards Braunston.

The end of The Big Cruise of 2017

approached as first Braunston’s church

and then the familiar double-humped

bridge came into sight. This did not mean

a chance to sit back and take it easy of

course. One thing you learn quickly about

narrowboats is that the list of

maintenance items that need to be dealt

with is never ending. So it was that bilge

repainting, blacking, a stove chimney

repair and many other tasks would have

to be completed in the coming months.

More on those in the next instalment

here in Canal Boat; until then, you can

watch my adventures in video at http://www.

CruisingTheCut.co.uk or chat with me on

Twitter (@CruisingTheCut). CB

I enlisted crew to help at Hatton!

The approach to Shrewley Tunnel