2022 Narrowboat Adventure

Tuesday 1st February 2022 When we tell people that we have hired a narrowboat for three months the responses vary from “Are you completely mad?” to “Great, could we come too?”. Matilda falls somewhere in between. Robert felt the need to plan national holidays to pass the time in lockdown when travelling abroad was a […]

Friday 18th to Monday 21st February 2022 Having swapped the warmth of Italy and the comfort of a spacious room at the Savoy Hotel in Rome for a seven foot wide narrowboat with considerably less floor space, Matilda is once again questioning her sanity.  We reunited with The Duke and our friends Liz and Martin […]

Tuesday 22nd February to Thursday 24th February 2022 Tuesday started with a short tunnel and . . . . . . we left Newbold with the sun trying to break through behind us. We are not sure quite how much Ralf can see but he seems to like the plastic “dodger” down to be able […]

Friday 25th to Sunday 27th of February 2022 We realise that there is a limit to the number of photos of locks, The Duke and The Duke at locks that we should include so we are aiming for pictorial diversification. Even though the pace of canal life is slow, with phones zipped in pockets to […]

Monday 28th February to Wednesday 2nd March 2022  As we left Stone at the start of day 13 we passed the old warehouse and bottling plant for Joule’s Brewery which was established in 1780 but ceased brewing in October 1974. A little further on Robert gazed enviously at a canal-side property by a bridge which […]

Thursday 3rd to Saturday 5th March 2022  Having booked our transit through the Standedge Tunnel, we now had to ensure that we reached Diggle in time. We knew this would involve some long days travelling and plenty of locks. Day 16 started well as Martin kindly picked Matilda up, took her to his house to […]

Sunday 6th to Tuesday 8th March 2022  Day 19 was the last day in our dash to make it to Standedge Tunnel in time for our booking on Monday. Sunday was not all plain sailing and we suffered a series of lock disasters. At lock 23W only one paddle worked and the lock was taking […]

Wednesday 9th to Friday 11th March 2022 Sue and Henry joined us on Tuesday afternoon and were surprised by how cosy it was inside The Duke. Matilda and Robert explained the vagaries of the stove and the lengthy process to light it and persuaded them it would be better to leave the stove going overnight, […]

Saturday 12th to Monday 14th March 2022 The “Dash for Diggle” to make the booking for Standedge Tunnel had a knock on effect for the rest of the schedule. Robert had hoped that the planned works at Hebdon Bridge would be finished by the time we got there. Regular checks on the website continued to […]

Tuesday 15th to Thursday 17th March 2022  The Jack of the Locks sculpture [see feature image] in Sowerby Bridge depicts Richard Tiffany, the town’s lock keeper in the canal’s final days of carrying commercial goods. A sign by the wharf says that Richard Tiffany was a well-known local character and his great grandson modelled for […]

Friday 18th to Sunday 20th March 2022 It was a misty start to Day 31 in Todmorden. Lock 19, on the Rochdale Canal, is right by the main road through the town of Todmorden and when the road was widened in the 1920s the traditional gates were replaced with a guillotine gate at one end […]

Monday 21st to Wednesday 23rd March 2022  Having received updates on the state of the canal from Martin the day before, Robert decided that he needed to check whether it was navigable before we left as we did not want to become stranded in “bandit country”. He set an alarm for 06:00 and set off […]

Thursday 24th  to Saturday 26th March 2022 Matilda thought she was having olfactory hallucinations when she woke to the smell of seasonal baking. Knowing that we planned to moor at Anderton, famous for its boat lift, where there is a visitor centre and café, Matilda planned to have a coffee and a hot cross bun at the […]

Sunday 27th  to Tuesday 29th March 2022 We have now reached day 40 on The Duke – a number with Biblical associations – and Ralf will be returning to his homeland. The only problem is that it is difficult to identify exactly when we will be entering Wales: looking at the map, the canal seems […]

Wednesday 30th March to Friday 1st April 2022 The route which the new crew – Gill and Derek – would be negotiating was to be very different from that tackled by Sue and Henry earlier in our narrowboat adventure. This stretch of the Llangollen Canal features only two locks, although there are several tunnels and […]

Saturday 2nd to Monday 4th April 2022 We had all promised ourselves a cooked breakfast so we strolled into Llangollen past the Riverside Taxidermy Studio which we remarked on at each time of passing: it seems such an unlikely business to be thriving in such a prime, picturesque location. After a very civilised and sustaining […]

Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th April 2022  Having waved Gill and Derek off to catch their single carriage train at the start of their journey home, we set off from Whitchurch planning to complete our journey on the Llangollen Canal and rejoin the Shropshire Union Canal, heading south into fresh new waters. Matilda was particularly […]

Friday 8th to Sunday 10th April 2022 Leaving the gingerbread heritage of Market Drayton behind us we prepared to ascend the five Tyrley Locks leading to . . . . . . the picturesque Tyrley Wharf. This was built as a private wharf but developed into a vibrant hamlet according to a notice on The […]

Monday 11th to Wednesday 13th April 2022 Leaving Brewood we came to Autherley Junction where there is a former canal toll office. The stop lock here marks where Telford’s Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal [now part of the Shropshire Union Canal] joined Brindley’s older Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. The fall is only about six inches […]

Thursday 14th to Saturday 16th April 2022 We set off early from Hockley Heath to travel down Lapworth Locks to Kingswood Junction where we had previously dropped Robert’s parents on the first leg of our narrowboat adventure way back in early February. This time we had arranged to meet our daughter Jaime at Kingswood Junction […]

Sunday 17th to Tuesday 19th April 2022 Early on Day 61, we passed The Princess, another of The Duke’s sister narrowboats. Over the last eight or nine weeks, Robert has perfected his hand gestures indicating Matilda should go on and set the next lock. After we had filled the first of the three Calcutt Locks […]