Category: Boat Update

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Not playing the game…

Moored at Bugsworth Basin In a previous “life” Boatwif used to run a weekly Drama Club. It was never the intention to produce West End stars, Hollywood babes or would-be celebrities (although there was one past student who did gain an Equity Card before reinventing himself as a CDT teacher).  Drama Club was about developing self-confidence, becoming a reliable team member, being imaginative, developing ideas, learning to respond on cue, participating in productions. At the start of each Drama Club...

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Just Perfick

Tuesday 14th August, 2012 What a glorious morning to take a short cruise of about two hours duration along this stunning canal, the eyes always drawn east into the Peak District … Ducks dozed on the canal bank, young Canada geese embarked on swimming practice, a heron perched and gazed into the deep, piglets snoozed in their enclosure beside the towpath, a young horse was walked roadside at Whaley Bridge. By 10am nb Valerie had headed back to Marple, intending...

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Sharing waters

12th and 13th August 2012 When setting off on a Cleddau cruise it is usual for there to be a detailed plan: Canal Planner  AC and Excel will have been deployed, ultimate destination, canal and river routes, overnight mooring places, sights to be seen and visitors expected will all have been taken into account, a daily itinerary subsequently produced. The resulting plan becomes a psychological prop (“we know what we’re doing”) but also a choke-chain (“Why are we starting up...

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A flower bedecked boat…

Saturday 4th August, 2012 “You’ve got to photograph it – you know you collect weddings!” called Relief First Mate. She knows how, apart from attending wedding ceremonies as an invited guest, Boatwif has, over the years, come across weddings in unexpected places. There was the wedding party marching around the walled city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria; there was the Canadian bride and her gang of bridesmaids pouring out of a vintage car outside an imposing church in...

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Visual feasts beside the sea

20th July to 2nd August 2012   “There! Now you’ve seen the Irish Ferry you’ll have to write a Boatwif blog,” announced the Captain.  Down the Haven in stately progress was coming the afternoon ferry from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare. “But, but, I haven’t had a boat trip,” was Boatwif’s reply. The circular walk during which the sighting had been made continued – past Thorne Island (glorious picnic stop), along the southern side of the Milford Haven Waterway, past Angle...

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Bells, blooms – and the Olympic Torch

Sunday 8th July, 2012 Even though the rain was beating hard what better could a boatless boatwif want on a summer Sunday morning than to stand looking at a fine river while church bells ring out joyfully?  In front of Bedford‘s Swan Hotel union flags were being distributed for waving purposes and spectators of all shapes, sizes and generations were gathering five and six deep on the pavements.  Below Bedford‘s Town Bridge rowers of skiffs and teams of rowing fours...

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Naked without waterproofs

Thursday 5th July: Bugsworth – Higher Poynton: 10.3 miles, 0 locks, 4 swing/lift bridges Boating neighbours from last night were keen to demonstrate their cross-bed arrangement this morning – and since their boat had been a 2009 Crick Show (Milburn of Daventry) boat they were keen to show off its other features. Cleddau finally set off, cruising out of Bugsworth Basins, past Teapot Row and on towards where the good lifers keep “The Happy Pigs” – except the pigs are...

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16 – 4 – 30

Rose Hill Cutting to Bugsworth Basin, 8.1 miles and … No, the title isn’t some obscure date from the last or this century, just some vital statistics: 16 locks up the Marple Flight (a climb of 214 feet); 4 bridges to wind or swing; 30 boats moored at present in Bugsworth Basin. After just under three hours of effort Cleddau reached Marple Top Lock. On the way up at least four boats were passed going down and there was one...

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Clogs and cobbles, cotton and canals

Dukinfield Junction to Rose Hill Cutting, 6.45 miles, 0 locks (and 1 trip down the weed hatch) Success this morning in gaining entry to the Portland Basin Museum. Exhibits in the lower galleries are related to local Tameside industries: there is a boater’s back cabin, machinery related to the cotton mills, artefacts from the hat and glove and clog making industries, lathes and sewing machines, the huge water valve from one of the first man-made reservoirs to supply clean water,...

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Tunnels

Millbrook, above Stalybridge to Dukinfield Junction, Peak Forest Canal:  5.23 miles, 8 locks It was farewell to the Huddersfield Narrow Canal at about 1pm today. Given that this canal’s most noted feature is the Standedge Tunnel (highest, deepest, longest – you’ve read it all before) it  comes as a surprise to come down through Stalybridge and again think “Tunnels”. By the time the canal’s restoration got under way much of the route through Stalybridge had been filled in and the...