Cedar is 65 feet long and 7 feet wide. It definitely lives up to its name of narrow boat. Top speed is 4 miles an hour – it weighs 16 tons, give or take a few – and when you want the front to go right you push the tiller to the left. It also turns from the center point. I don’t mean that it bends but the back and the front go equal distances when you turn it, kind of like a compass, and it takes a while to turn it so you have to think ahead. We got our first – and only – lesson from our instructor who went with us for about a mile to the first lock. After directions on how to get through the first lock, he left us! On our own, we soon hit the side of the boat on a bridge, but it was a very narrow bridge and we’ll never tell who was driving!
(The above picture was taken a few days later when Ginger and I went walking on the tow path and it shows the length of the boat.)
We proceeded on for about a mile through bucolic English countryside marveling at the scenery, checking out all the boats that are moored “permanently” that people live in, some beautiful, some looking like derelicts. I say “permanently” but you are only allowed to moor for up to two weeks in one spot and then you have to move on. We went on through the next lock, which of course was different than the first lock, then went a little further and moored on the tow path side for the night. You are supposed to – and want to – moor on the tow path side because that is where the pathway is to walk on when you get out of the boat. It’s also the pathway where the donkeys or horses used to tow the boats in the day when the boats were a primary mode of transporting goods.
To give you a little history on the narrow boats and how this recreational activity came about, in the late 1700’s, land owners who were mining coal in the north of England wanted a faster way to get the coal to the industrial parts of the country where manufacturing was going on – like Birmingham and London. It was realized that transporting by water rather than over land would be quicker and cheaper so they began to dig these canals, narrow ones because that was faster and cheaper, and build the narrow boats to go along them. The narrow boats were loaded with the coal so that it was piled high from back almost to the front, the front being left open for a living area. However, that living area was very small and families lived on the boats. You need to imagine raising a family in an area about the size of our VW camper only smaller! There is a lot of history to be read about how this group of people lived and survived and its culture. The book I had and passed on to Ginger to read is “Ramblin Rose, something, something” (neither Ginger nor I can remember the name) and the women worked especially hard to keep the children and their clothes clean so they could go to the schools along the way and not be embarrassed being coal kids.
The boats were towed by donkeys or horses and they pulled the boats by walking on one side of the canal, thus the term “towpaths”. When the boats had to go through tunnels, the donkeys couldn’t pull them, of course, so the owner of the boat and maybe his children would lie on top of the coal on their backs and push the boat through the tunnel with their feet, a very dangerous occupation indeed! There were also men you could hire called “leggings” who would do this for you.
The locks are, of course, devices to lower or raise the boat because the water level changes according to the slope of the land. They are made of two sets of two large wooden gates that contain hidden paddles that can be raised or lowered to allow water to enter or leave the lock to fill it or empty it. The paddles are raised or lowered by your crew members who use a windlass or lock key to raise or lower the rack and pinion that are connected to the paddles that are at the bottom of the gates.
Pubs began to be opened along the canals to provide places to eat and probably shop and probably a place for the men to meet. Many of them still exist today and we tried our best to visit as many as we could if only for a look-see! Here's a favorite - the Hag's Head about 100 yards from the canal - far by most standards.
Anyway, in the mid-1800’s when the trains started to be built, coal began to be moved on them and over the years, the canals began to be unused and deteriorate. Around the 1950’s I think it was, people began to realize that the canals were an important part of their history and also a recreational possibility. Volunteer groups formed and began to dig the muck out of the canals and restore them. Our Philip, who we are exchanging houses with, remembers volunteering as a teenager – I think in the 60’s – on the Kennett Avon canal. Coincidentally, that is the canal that we will be travelling with Philip and Ellen when they return to England the week before we leave. The British Waterways Board was formed and is now a “public corporation accountable to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs” and if you are on the waterways you go by their rules. For difficult lock areas, like Devizes where there are 29 one right after another, there are employees available to help.
So now, people like us get to ride through this beautiful countryside in style. Our boat is equipped with two bedrooms en-suite as they say here (private bathrooms) with showers, a full working kitchen, “lounge” with folding table and chairs and an l-shaped settee. A TV, CD player and cassette player are also provided. Toaster, coffee pot, and other utensils are all provided – everything except the microwave! Our interior is rose and teal! The only thing we needed to bring was our clothes and our food. If you ever get the chance to do this, you must! John has put a video walk-thru of the boat on his facebook page that is kind of fun to watch.
After mooring the first night, we walked to a thatched pub in the nearby village called the Carpenter’s Arms that we had visited almost exactly 6 years ago on our fist trip. A lesson in “you can’t go back” – the pub was there but we learned it had closed down at one point and reopened. (By the way, England is losing about 40 pubs a week and I believe it was either Samuel Johnson or Pepys who said that “when England loses her pubs, she has lost her heart.” The Border Collie that lived at The Carpenter’s Arms who would jump up on the bench next to you and grab your coaster so you would play with him (his name was Brie) was gone and the new owner took out all the old pub furniture and put in high backed leather chairs in the restaurant area and leather barrel chairs near the fireplace. I’m sure it’s much more comfortable for the locals but I find the appearance rather jarringly out of place. However, I’m grateful this guy bought it for £500,000 and was willing to take the chance. He was there and John and Bill got to talking to him. Apparently, quite well off, he owns other restaurants in London and recently sold his helicopter! All we know is that his name is Allen and he gave the guys a couple of restaurant names and told them to tell these places that Allen referred us and they would take care of us! You never know who you are going to meet in a pub!
There also was an old fellow at the bar who flew Liberators in WWII and enjoyed talking with the guys. Ginger and I left early because we were hungry and they weren’t serving dinner on Mondays. Bill told us when they returned to the boat that this old fellow also said that he had 65 steps to get home but if he goes 66, he doesn’t know where he is and has to go back to the pub and start over!
(Hey, a Wiemerauner (sic?) just walked by and stuck his nose up to the boat window to see who was in here. You have to realize that when you are standing in the boat, you are at eye level with walkers’ knees and dog’s noses as they pass by!)
Ginger and I played house when we got back to the boat and got the table set up for our cheese and crackers dinner. The boys made sardine sandwiches (who would know they had that love in common!), we looked at the photographs John had loaded on his computer of our days in Ludlow and decided it was time to call it a day – another beautiful day in England.
Sunday morning – May 16th
We have been on the canal boat for six days and it’s been a wonderful time.
We got into a routine of waking up around 8, making coffee and having breakfast and taking as long as we wanted to do that. When the time felt right, we would get the engine going and we’d be off. Ginger and Bill took over immediately doing the locks and got quite good at it. John, and occasionally I, would motor the boat into and through the locks. As I said, the boat is 65 feet long and 7 feet wide on the outside. The locks are about 15-16 feet wide and 70 feet long or a little more. The trick with keeping the boat stable in the lock is to constantly put it in forward gear, then neutral, then reverse and back again to keep the boat from getting too close to either end of the lock. This takes almost constant vigilance because as the lock is either filling up or emptying, the force of the water pushes the boat one way or the other. If you spot a place on the wall of the lock and line it up with a spot on the boat, you can keep adjusting the boat to keep it in place. The only danger is getting the bow or stern caught on the cill (that is the correct spelling!) of the lock (a ledge that juts out from the gate) and have that end of the boat rise up out of the water. I’ve heard others say that they have seen it happen but we haven’t nor have we had it happen to us, thank goodness. I fine handling the boat in the locks much more fun than opening and closing the locks. Fortunately, Ginger and Bill preferred handling the locks so it all worked out. You can see them triumphing below. That's our boat again.
We’ve seen some beautiful scenery and sights along the canal. Most of this portion of the Grand Union Canal that we have traveled has been in the unspoiled English countryside. We have passed through many pastures and parks and we have marveled at the vistas that we have seen and photographed. There have been many grey herons that have accompanied us, or maybe it’s the same one that flies away and waits for us further on, and ducks and swans. Because it’s Spring, we’ve also had the pleasure of seeing their ducklings and signets. Boy, can those tiny little feet propel those youngsters along! We saw one swan on her nest very close to the canal edge with hubby keeping watch alongside. The nest was probably about 3’ across and about 8-12” deep. I didn’t realize that it would be so big but they are pretty big fowl so it seems appropriate.
Two nights in a row we moored at my favorite spot – at Grafton Regis where John and I had moored on our last trip on this canal in 2004. This particular spot has open fields on either side with a herd of sheep and their lambs. We all walked up to the pub in town but it’s my least favorite ever so Ginger and I decided to walk back and view the lambs. We hoped that they would do what little lambs are famous for – running and playing through the fields with their contemporaries. When lambs get to running and playing they sometimes jump straight up in the air like a jack-in-the-box and when you get to see a bunch of them doing it, you can’t stop laughing at them. Ginger would try to encourage them to play by calling to them and saying things like “Come on, little guy, come over here” , etc. During her conversation with one of these little guys, I turned around and saw a fellow walking down this dirt road toward us and sort of grinning at us. I said to Ginger that this guy was going to think we were nuts when he said “Don’t they have lambs in America?” We had to quickly justify our city behavior by telling him there weren’t many roads near us with lambs on them that we could talk to! He got as good a kick out of our antics as we did from the lambs!
By the way, Grafton Regis is a famous village because back in the 1400’s, Elizabeth Woodville waited for Edward IV’s progression to come by so she could plead for her inheritance that had been absconded from her by some male relative when her husband died. Edward not only gave her her inheritance back but fell in love with her and secretly married her at the heritage or church in Grafton Regis which was on this road where we walked. The church whose tower we could see across the fields from our mooring was 13th century and was there when Edward and Elizabeth met. One of their sons became Edward VII whose son was Henry VIII so they turned out to be Elizabeth I’s great grandparents! Pretty important event, then, wasn’t it!!!
Things like that are what fascinate me about England. I guess in our country we have historic spots, too, like where George Washington slept, or Thomas Jefferson farmed or whatever, and maybe if I read as much American history as I have English I would feel differently but I haven’t and I don’t so that’s the way it is.
One of the pubs we stopped at both coming and going was The Nag’s Head in Great Linford. I pictured it earlier. It was Pub of the Year not too long ago and has had little change over the centuries. You probably can Google it. It’s ceilings are so low that when a very tall man and his very tall son (maybe they were around 6’4”) came in, they never did straighten up until they sat down!
During both visits, there was a very old man there that we struck up a conversation with – Alf Dudley. He was sort of a sad story – hasn’t had any communication with his ex-wife and children and grandchildren for nine years and that’s the way he likes it! Other folks came into the pub to visit with him and he seemed rather likable so the curiosity was killing us but we never learned much more. He did say when we asked him his name that his ancestors went back to Elizabethan times and were associates of the Queen. One of her favorites was Robert Dudley so I think he might have meant his family but I never got the chance to ask. I wonder, though, that if I stare at this picture long enough if I could imagine what his ancestor and Elizabeth's love looked like!
By the way, I don’t believe that I have mentioned that our trip is 7 days and you have to return the boat back to where you got it by 9:00AM Monday, so you plan your trip to go 3.5 days and then turn around and come back. We didn’t go as far as we could have so we had very slow relaxing days on the way back. That will explain, if you were wondering, why we moored twice in the same spot and knew where we wanted to stop on the way back. It was also good because Bill had gotten a wicked respiratory thing and he had lots of opportunity to sleep without missing much. He also stayed “isolated” in their “room” so we wouldn’t get much exposure to him and Ginger was able to make up the bed in the lounge area for herself so they both could sleep better at night. It’s amazing how much room these little boats have but I wouldn’t want to have more than 4 adults on it even if it does sleep 6!
We went as far as through the Blisworth Tunnel which is 3000 meters long or 1.86 miles and turned around about 30 minutes beyond it to start back. It is very dark in there and very narrow so it is a feat in itself when another boat is coming the other way. In order to see better, we were instructed to turn on the headlight and ALL the lights in the boat so the light from the windows would light the sides of the tunnel and help you see. We also had a very good example of seeing “the light at the end of the tunnel” and understanding the optimism of that phrase! It’s very wet in there, too, because there is constant dripping. Also, the tunnel was built by first digging very deep shafts that workers would go down to dig out the tunnel by hand (remember, it was in the 1700’s!). Of course, those shafts still exist and there is a LOT of water dripping from them. You wear your raincoat while you are in there or use your “brollie” – that’s umbrella in British!
Turning this boat is an art in itself and you can only do it at “winding holes” which is pronounced like the blowing wind not like winding the clock! It is a large V or U shape cut out on one side of the canal and you steer the bow of the boat into it and back up to the other side of the canal ( no steering available when in reverse!) and then go back into forward and turn the boat to go back in the direction you were coming. John is quite good at it!
We returned to The Globe pub late Sunday morning. This was our last destination before we had to be at the boatyard the next morning at 9AM and was only about 30 minutes away. It is also the site of The Great Train Robbery (http://www.pub-explorer.com/beds/pub/globeinnlinsladehistory.htm for your information). Our early arrival gave us the rest of the day for sleeping, reading, walking, and eating at The Globe, there in the background of this picture with our boat! A very nice way to end a very tranquil week.
Because it takes such a long time to load pictures on to this blog site, I refer you to John’s Facebook page to see the many he took along the way. He is listed as John L’Engle Graham.
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