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  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 17

    Our Avon Gateway

    October 12, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    After just three more miles of low bridges and difficult locks, we're arriving at the junction of the Stratford Canal and the River Avon at a town we've been talking about for days!
    Thirty-two miles to the southwest, at the confluence of the Avon with the River Severn is Tewkesbury, our new home, so Stratford on Avon feels like something of a 'gateway' to the last leg of our journey.

    Pelangi's chimney cowl has to be removed for the very last, and very low bridge before we emerge into the attractive Bancroft Basin where we moor up. This is the southern end of the Stratford Canal, some thirteen miles and 36 locks from Kingswood Junction where we left the Grand Union Canal!

    Right beside our mooring is the much photographed Gower Memorial - statue of a seated William Shakespeare surrounded by four further statues of characters from his plays.
    The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is just a hundred yards away on the north bank of the Avon, along with the majority of the historic town centre.

    We have plenty of chores to complete tomorrow, including a laundrette visit - no mains power on our mooring here, so we must conserve Pelangi's leisure-batteries for the four nights we intend to stay. Plus some urgent food shopping; not to mention another evening eating out - perhaps an Indian or Thai restaurant. Not surprisingly there are dozens of eateries in Stratford, and even now, in mid-October, there are tourists and visitors seemingly in every nook and cranny!

    One especial highlight that Jo in particular is looking forward to, is our second visit to the nearby Stratford Butterfly Farm - billed as the UK's biggest breeding centre of tropical and subtropical butterflies and moths! A third of the centre's butterfly population are from a sister centre in Belize, where conservation efforts are trying to protect some rarer and potentially threatened species. The farm's hot-houses attempt to reproduce the biodiversity of the tropical habitat with a myriad of plants, soils, watercourses and of course the butterflies and moth themselves - hundreds of them all flitting about, resting and feeding with visitors walking amongst them.
    It's a truly amazing and astonishing place... we can't wait to be there!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 16

    Stratford bound

    October 11, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    Just before dinner yesterday evening, someone living near Bucket Lock kindly came down the towpath to warn us that our short pound could empty overnight due to leaky gates below. We untie and move below the lock to a much longer pound.
    All is well in the morning though; we could have been listing badly by now if we'd stayed above! Now it's a bright, sunny morning in the most glorious Worcestershire countryside and we notice, when we're in a lock with Pelangi's engine off, how quiet it is.

    After three woodland-surrounded locks in quick succession, this stretch of canal has some straighter, longer, lock-free sections passing through agricultural land dotted with varied livestock farms and one strangely out of the way narrowboats marina. Tranquility indeed!
    A longer aqueduct takes us over the grandly named Tyseley South Junction To Bearley West Junction Branch railway line, but sadly, no trains at this moment - will dream tonight of express steam trains passing under Pelangi... (wot, on a branch line? !).

    We're passing the village of Wilmcote which has some very attractive canalside properties, along with 'Mary Arden's House' - mistakenly thought to be the home of Shakespeare' mother; it's now known she lived thirty yards away at Glebe Farm!
    Just yards south of the intriguingly named Canada Bridge is the Wilmcote Flight of eleven locks and we decide to attempt the first eight and then moor up, tackling the remainder tomorrow before the last six steeper locks into Stratford on Avon.
    There have been maybe four of five narrowboats pass us today, including a privately-hired trip boat, but we are pleasantly surprised to find two CRT lock-volunteers on the flight, and they help us through the next six locks. One of our volunteers is actually a CRT employee over from Bedford who normally works from home covering call-centre duties. The other is retired, living in Stratford. We are really grateful of their help, as many of this "Working Museum's" locks are proving heavy work indeed.    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    1
    Day 15

    "Working Museum"

    October 10, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    After a short tunnel and three lock-free miles we're at the H-shaped junction that connects the wide Grand Union Canal, that we're now leaving, with the very narrow Stratford Canal. The GUC continues north to Birmingham and as we navigate the connecting cut of the junction, the sign points left for Stratford-on-Avon and right for Worcester - which we did five years ago - we're turning left!

    As we head for the first lock south, a CRT volunteer walks down from the Worcester-heading flight of locks and helps us fill our lock. He tells Jo that he came on shift at 11 o'clock after arriving back from his holiday in Greece at midnight! He asks Jo how far we're planning to go today and Jo replies "'til 4 o'clock", which he thinks is as good a plan as any.
    There are plenty of oddities and peculiarities to spot on this canal - you can't miss them really - but it feels comforting to be back on narrow locks again; only one gate to open each end, and with just six to eight turns of the windlass, the paddle is open or closed. The nagging arm and shoulder ache attached to the wide locks is miraculously gone!
    We're arriving at a lock now that has a lock-keeper's cottage right beside it, with an unusual 'barrel-shaped' roof. Historically, the canal builders (called Navvies) were often the road or footpath bridge-builders too, usually producing hump-back bridges of brick, shaped in an arch to support the road or path above. When directed to build a cottage beside the lock, they built its roof in the only way they knew how... so nearly all the canalside cottages in this section have an arched roof!
    By far the most novel canal structure here though is the 'split bridge'. Never heard of it? Neither had we until we first read of them in our Nicholson waterways guide...
    Two centuries ago, the only way to propel a 70 foot narrowboat up and down the canal network, was by horsepower; every boat was connected to a rope connected to a horse, pony or mule to tow you. But slow as that was compared with today's mechanical engines, what was even slower was when boat and horse meets an arched bridge where the towpath passes to the left or right of the bridge. The horse has to be unhitched from the boat and taken around the bridge whilst the often laden boat slowly passes beneath said bridge.
    So here on the Stratford a clever solution was devised - a bridge with a narrow slit in the middle of its arch through which a rope could pass, and thus No Stopping of boat or horse. Clever, eh?
    Today, there are still examples of this unique type of bridge, and we're passing under one right now... though with an engine, not a horse. As our lock-volunteer explained earlier, "this canal is a working museum"!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 14

    I see no ships

    October 9, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    Two boats pass our mooring, heading up the Hatton flight together. One of them we recognise from Burghfield Island in Reading! At this time of year, the chances of setting off for the flight at the same time as another boat in the same direction are pretty slim.

    As we're in no hurry, we find that raising just one paddle to fill each lock saves us a lot of physical effort. As we count off each of the sixteen wide-locks remaining to the top, there are probably a dozen or more walkers and their humans out for a Sunday stroll, but no boats are catching us up or appearing coming down! We have to do the Hatton together, solo, so to speak.

    Every now and then a family or a couple stop to watch, or ask questions about Pelangi, or how the lock works or where we're going. One local lady walking the towpath with her dog quips to Jo, "you've got a lot of steps to go up, my dear!" Chris is sure he can see someone now working the paddle or gate about three locks behind us... but it's like hallucinating: we 'see' what we desperately hope to see!
    There's a sign at lock eleven - Hatton Middle Lock - which Chris is religiously snapping 'to prove' that we were here, and not cheating by taking the nearby M40 or something! We plod on...
    Eventually we come to some canalside buildings (CRT owned), that as well as housing workshops, serve to welcome visitors to the Hatton, and would, in peak holiday period, be busy with Gongoozlers - boat/canal watchers - observing many boats going up and down the locks, sometimes with a number of lock-volunteers in attendance. Not today, though; the place is deserted, except for us.
    At last we're nearing the summit, and just as we're completing the penultimate lock, there's a boat coming down from the top lock. The irony of fate's timing couldn't be more frustrating! Nevertheless, we're about to snap our picture of the Hatton Top Lock sign to, er, prove blah blah, and celebrate being here again - fifteen years after making the flight for the first time (descending in our old boat, Jenny May), we're back, triumphant at bringing Pelangi up the flight solo, in exactly four hours!
    A Country and Western not-very-good-singer playing loudly in the canalside cafe's garden doesn't dampen our spirits - we use the boaters' recycling facilities to dispose of a very full bag of beverage bottles and moor up for the day just before Shrewley Tunnel (433 yards)... a very good day we feel, all things considered.    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 13

    Hatton ahead!

    October 8, 2022 in England ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    North of, and parallel with, the Grand Union Canal, flows the the River Leam close to the centre of Leamington Spa. The river is surrounded by parks and green spaces for much of its course through the town - which we found attractive with wide streets and plenty of independent food traders.

    Now we are heading for Warwick, and though our waterway guide's map seems to show Leamington Spa and Warwick merging, we are seeing green fields, colourful gardens backing onto the canal, and some interesting waterway features. The Chiltern mainline now passing under our short aqueduct, is the same line we walked under on our way to the restaurant yesterday evening - either some ascending locks have been mysteriously erased from our memory, or the railway has quite a downward gradient over a relatively short distance to Warwick!
    Even more interesting is our entering a longer aqueduct that crosses the Avon River valley - the river we'll be joining in no less than 64 lock-miles after ascending 150 feet of the Hatton Flight's twenty-one locks and navigating half the Stratford Canal southwards! Jo has read that in the not too distant past, an enquiry was set up to consider "extending navigation to Leamington Spa and in conjunction with the River Leam and four locks, link into the Grand Union Canal", but which "for the time being at least..." has been rejected.
    Youch! We still have a lot of paddles to raise and lower between here and Stratford!!

    Jo took a bit of a tumble a few days back, stepping off Pelangi onto the towpath back on the Oxford near Napton. Her leg is healing, but still hurts if she walks much between locks, so for now we are just completing the first five locks of the Hatton Flight and mooring-up for the day to give her more time to rest.
    Tomorrow we hope to either have other boaters to share the flight with, or find some CRT lock volunteers helping with the ascent. Either way, we intend to take it slowly and gently. All the better to enjoy the amazing views back down this grand canal.    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 11

    Wide narrow canal

    October 6, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    To our surprise, the conversion of at least the Warwickshire section of the former Warwick and Napton Canal, from narrow canal to wide canal, didn't begin until well into the 20th Century - the late 1920s in fact!

    The famous Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. bought the ailing canal from receivership and built new wide locks and infrastructure to try and revive fortunes through allowing more and bigger waterway vessels with easier passage from the Midlands to London. It was all too late; the development of a faster railway network and the freight capacity of a single train, not to mention the reduced costs for that freight, was spelling the doom of most canals for commerce.

    Today, as we tackle each of the twenty locks from our overnight mooring at Gibralter Bridge to Leamington Spa, right beside us lie some remnants of the old canal.
    The defunct narrow locks no longer have gates but were converted into overflow channels for the new wide-locks, and in some places are now private moorings for boats.

    Jo and Chris have adopted a completely different routine for working the Grand Union locks from that of the Oxford...
    It goes something like this: Chris ties Pelangi at the lock mooring whilst Jo checks for boats approaching from below the lock and starts or completes its filling from the right hand, odd looking ground-paddle raiser. If the lock is less than half full, then Chris does the same on the left hand mechanism to speed the filling up, and when the top gates are ready to open, drops the paddle back and recrosses the lock to bring Pelangi in. Jo opens one of the gates - nearly 8 feet wide - and closes again after Chris is in, then also drops the paddle she'd opened.
    Now, with Pelangi loosely tied, we start the descent: this time Jo crosses the bottom gates and raises the paddle - it's hard work as it takes over twenty turns of an often stiff mechanism to raise/lower each paddle. Chris does the same on the right-hand side and waits for the gates to part slightly - they usually do as water levels equal on each side - making sure Jo can safely return across the gates, rather than have to walk right around the lock.
    Then Chris can throw the mooring rope down onto Pelangi's roof and either jump down or, if a deep lock, climb down the lock-ladder and take Pelangi through the gate that Jo has opened. PHEW! - now repeat twenty times.

    It's half the work if two boats, and thus two crews, can work a lock together; and easier still if there're boats coming up each next lock, as they'll have inevitably left the lock full of water and maybe, if in sight of us, left a gate open as well. We aim to do the same for them, of course.

    We have one short staircase lock to tackle just a mile after Long Itchington.
    The procedure is similar, except that the bottom gates of the one lock, are the top gates of the next; so we have to be sure that the lower lock is empty, otherwise we'll flood the lock and its surrounds with the contents of the lock we're coming down in!

    We meet several oncoming boats, so many of the locks are set for us to go straight in, and soon we are moving from open countryside into the urban landscape that is the edge of Leamington Spa. We find a suitable, though shallow, mooring just after passing under the railway bridge of the Cliltern Mainline.
    Tomorrow we shall rest from navigation; a few chores to do and then we can enjoy another evening out. Lovely!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 10

    "Left at the junction"

    October 5, 2022 in England ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    As we have breakfast, some four narrowboats pass us in the direction of the Napton Flight (nine locks) which reopens at 9.30. With about eight boats ahead of us, it's nearer 11am when we start the flight.

    We are surprised how quickly we're completing these locks, but there's a strong wind mainly behind us from the south and west, which briefly becomes almost gale-force, blowing all the autumnal leaves from a bankside tree over Pelangi. After several consecutive warm, sunny days we've just enjoyed on the Oxford, today some heavy, though thankfully brief, showers are making everything and everyone very wet; the crew of the boat ahead of us decide to moor up, but we carry on - we want to at least make Napton Junction before we moor up for the night.
    Then, at the flight's very bottom lock... Surprise! - CRT Maintenance are in evidence, along with a very welcome lock-volunteer who helps us through and points to where the Elsan disposal point is!

    Now it's just two miles to the junction of the narrow Oxford and the wide Grand Union canals. Jo reminds Chris in advance that "we're turning left there", as straight ahead lies Braunston on the Grand Union Canal to London; and just before Braunston the turning for the remaining northern section of the Oxford, towards Coventry.
    At last, with the large Wigrams Turn Marina entrance on our right, the signpost to Warwick comes into view. Our hard-left turn here heralds the end of our navigating the Oxford - a challenging waterway, but one that took us beside the River Cherwell from the city of Oxford, through to Banbury and the wonderful countryside of North Oxfordshire. Anyone with a narrowboat would surely want to visit this canal!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 9

    Oh, that heatwave!

    October 4, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    With the spring and summer climate being what it was this year in southern England, many navigable waterways saw their water-levels decline and decline. This required some to introduce urgent remedial measures as the 'official' drought year wore on.

    Two places that we know of on the Oxford Canal have had time restrictions placed on their navigation. The one we've been moored before, overnight, is the Claydon Flight of five locks, which will reopen at 9.30am. We're not sure how this might help reduce pressure on water supplies to the upper pounds, unless it somehow deters people from coming out in their boats?
    We are soon on our way up the flight and find, at the third lock, a helpful and pleasant CRT volunteer manning the lock. He has his own stone-built lock-keeper's shelter and is keeping a count of boats both ascending - as we are - and descending. He provides useful tips to Chris on how the professional boaters used to position their narrowboat in the lock to minimise sudden movement as the pressure of water is let in through the sluices. We like learning about this industrial history; and it's practical application for people who've been getting it all wrong!

    The top lock of Claydon marks the start, for us, of the Oxford's ten miles long top pound, which is proving to be slow progress due to its shallow depth. The only time we've experienced navigating shallower water was on bits of the Shroppie (Shropshire Canal) and the Llangollen Canal in 2017.
    After a few miles into the top pound and we come to Fenny Compton Wharf which, along with a shop, post office and cafe, has a chandlery, which we've been on the lookout for. Tooley's in Banbury had run out of chimney cowls - we lost ours overboard from an overhanging tree on the lower Oxford - but this chandlery has just what we're after.
    We continue now on the contour-hugging snakey trail of the top pound which, if the crow flew it, would be three miles, but which for us is triple the distance! With our eyes closed we could tell we're at the exposed top of the canal, it's so windy up here. There is a very extensive area of earth-moving and great mountains of soil piled each side of the canal for a couple of miles, but we've no idea or clues as to what's it's all for. Soon though we're approaching the second of the canal's timed restrictions - the Napton Flight of nine locks. We must Moor here overnight behind at least six other boats that arrived ahead of us. The 'big descent' awaits; it's all of 50 feet!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 8

    The ascent of boat

    October 3, 2022 in England ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    After attending to some urgent food shopping, Chris swaps our stern rope (or line) with the centre-line which has become badly frayed. A new stern line has been bought from Tooley's and when attached we set off from Banbury; a short visit but one we've thoroughly enjoyed.

    There are now some significant changes evident in the Oxford. The very first lock we come to has double gates into the lock instead of just the one.
    This means that although each gate is much lighter to shift than a single bottom gate, there's a walk right around the lock to open the second gate for the boat to enter. Then the gates are fairly easily closed by two boaters, but a solo boater will have to walk all the way around the lock again, or be very athletic and jump the half lock gap!

    As the canal climbs towards the top pound - stretch of canal where locks at either end are both descending ones - we pass through the village of Cropredy, where we spent one of our first holidays together at a folk music festival here. The countryside to the west is more visible as we ascend, with fewer high, dense hedges obscuring north Oxfordshire's pastureland and low hills.

    As we complete our next lock, a boater approaching us from the north tells Jo that there's a probable delay at the lock they've just come from, where CRT had to be called out to release a gate jammed open by a crushed metal chimney. We arrive there to find a queue of boats waiting to ascend - they've been stuck below the lock for nearly three hours! We are very glad not to have to wait anywhere near that long to get through and without a hitch.

    Another change in the canal here is that as we ascend, so each pound is a little shallower than the previous one. Passing oncoming boats is getting slower as we find ourselves listing as we steer our hull onto silted up water close to the bank. Increasingly we have to reverse a few yards before Pelangi is free from the shallow bottom.
    Tonight we're mooring up near just before the Claydon Flight which closes at 3pm. Quite a remote spot; it is so quiet here. Wonderful!    Read more

  • chris RoaldPelangi's New Home
    Day 7

    Heritage centre

    October 2, 2022 in England ⋅ 🌙 9 °C

    Arriving in Banbury on a Sunday, we expect it will be quiet with plenty of mooring space; but to our amazement we're pootling into the middle of the town's annual Canal Festival !! The weekend-long festival is bustling with locals and visitors.

    We first need to use the waterway facilities (first rate here) and make for the lock and close-by lift bridge which are both enthusiastically manned by CRT - Canal & River Trust - festival volunteers who help Jo operate them. There are several historic freight carrying boats here, along with a plethora of "craft boats", ostensibly selling hand-made traditional items that past waterways folk once made; not really, we feel.
    We are lucky to find space amongst the visiting boats and moor up. It's gone 4 o'clock and we want to see some of the festival's offerings and visit a particular place in Banbury's waterway heritage. On the eastern side of the canal, opposite side to the town centre, a major modern leisure development has risen since we were last moored here - nearly ten years ago. A cinema, tavern and eateries are all here, but unlike Reading's sprawling Oracle shopping centre, which just has the K&A snaking through - "no stopping", let alone mooring - Banbury has embraced the Oxford Canal proximity and history, welcoming boaters through proper moorings provision and modern facilities that help generate a valuable income for the town!

    At the canalside pub today are folk singers and band which we stop to hear for a short while, but on the opposite bank is a very historic boat with a whole display tent to itself. When we cross the canal's main foot bridge we come across a major feature: historic wooden narrowboat Hardy, which was deliberately sunk for preservation purposes, is afloat again and a public consultation is taking place as to it's potential future, in Banbury, as a historic waterway vessel. Hardy was the last wooden freight carrier by boat-builders Nurser Brothers of Braunston, and is known to have regularly carried bulk goods from Tamworth to Banbury up to the 1960s.

    Anyone with an interest in the resurrection of England's canal network after so much abandonment in the last century, will know of the late Tom Rolt's incredible galvanising of effort to have defunct and decrepit canals revived and made navigable again. Tom was a co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association in 1946 after navigating, against all odds in many instances, many miles of abandoned canals in his converted narrowboat, Cressy.
    The work of making Cressy habitable for its investigatory voyage was carried out at the now famous Tooleys Boat Yard in Banbury, which is still repairing and fitting out narrowboats right here beside the Oxford. We learn today that in 2018 Tooley's helped raise the neglected Hardy and brought her to Banbury with a view to restoration of some sort... "but restoring an old boat is a lot of work and is very expensive" reads the consultation leaflet. "we want to find out if you (local or visitor) think it will be worth doing...".
    From one of the Hardy appeal volunteers we learn that Tooley's chandlery is open 'til the festival ends, so after positive participation in the consultation, we go straight to the chandlery for new rope and chimney cowl for Pelangi. Right next door, Tooley's dry-dock has been turned into a festival events venue. Fantastic!

    What a stroke of luck, arriving here at festival time, in a place that's making the most of its waterways heritage... and building upon it - in the right sense - for today and the future.    Read more

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