“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!”
– Kenneth Grahame, ‘The Wind in the Willows‘
I’ve just got back from five days ‘messing about on the river’ … or at least, the canal … in Northamptonshire.
My lovely friends booked a narrowboating holiday to celebrate my disturbingly large birthday this year, and we have all been waiting impatiently since December for the date to arrive. Well, it finally did, so we loaded up the car with everything we thought we’d need and headed over to Napton Junction to pick up our home from home.
Now I have to say here that the premise of this holiday was based on the slightly erroneous information that I used to work for a theatre company who tour by narrowboat and would therefore know exactly what I was doing on a narrowboat. Sadly for all of us, while the fact that I worked for said theatre company was absolutely correct, I was based in a (very) landlocked office in Marsden and have never driven a narrowboat in my life! It did feel like a very good omen that, on arrival at the boatyard, the first thing I saw was a poster for the theatre company that are still going strong. If you are in the area and get the chance to see them either here or anywhere else, I can highly recommend this amazing company!
We also discovered at this point that the recent hot weather had devastating consequences for Britain’s waterways, huge chunks of the canal system were closed completely, and there were lock restrictions on most of the rest. Some locks were closed during the day and only allowed traffic through for short periods in the morning and evening, and some were closed until late morning and only open during the middle of the day. This didn’t seem to have deterred anyone, though; they just seemed to have shifted onto the bits that were open and carried on. Our new route was mostly open (it had a couple of restrictions), so we were good to go.
On the drive over, we had many conversations about possible routes that we could take and had come up with a grand plan to follow the Grand Union Canal from Napton Junction, through Leamington Spa and into Warwick where we could visit the castle before returning the same way. We very proudly told the men at the boatyard this plan … and then watched their faces freeze slightly as they tried to find a tactful way to tell us that we were having a laugh and there was no way a bunch of novices could manage to navigate that far in the time we had available. They managed to be more diplomatic than that, and a new plan was implemented. We would head along to Braunston before turning up the Oxford Narrow* Canal towards Hillmorton and Rugby, where we would turn around for the return trip.
*A key piece of information here … and not one that we entirely took on board straight away.
After a VERY short introduction to boating, we were turned loose on our narrowboat and off we puttered. Something that I certainly hadn’t thought about previously (and I’m pretty sure none of the others had either) was exactly how one goes about steering a rigid steel box that is fifty four** feet long through a waterway that has definite bends in it. The boat has no brakes, is steered from the back, and it’s impossible to see the front from the tiller. It’s not as easy as it sounds. And it doesn’t sound that easy.
**Keep that number in mind; it becomes very important later on in this story … that’s fifty-four feet.
We did a little bit of richocheting from bank to bank. And a tiny bit of richocheting off another stationary boat, but the less said about that, the better! In our defence, it wasn’t much of a hit, the owners were there, and we apologised profusely and repeatedly. Mostly, we did OK. We (I say ‘we’, but at this point, I was mostly just sitting and watching the banks go past while trying to stay out of the way!) wombled our way along to the junction of the Grand Union and the Oxford Narrow at Braunston feeling very much like we were getting the hang of this. And then Braunston came into view. Two white bridges, each at a 45° angle to our current waterways, with the path through each cluttered with boats, both moving and moored. It was frankly terrifying. But it had to be done, and we had to get through, so we womaned up, took a deep breath, gritted our teeth, and steered for our lives.
By the time we got to the other side, we needed a stiff drink, but we made it. And … it was about this time that the first key piece of information mentioned previously came into play. We had just turned on to the Oxford Narrow Canal. That’s ‘narrow’, as in ‘less wide’. As in less room to manoeuvre, and less room between us and oncoming boats. Sometimes, there was very little room between us and the moored boats, and we still needed to fit an oncoming boat in as well. For some reason, the width of the Oxford Narrow is variable, with some bits being incredibly wide and others having maybe a couple of inches to spare on either side of our boat. And it’s criss-crossed with bridges. None of which are at a sensible angle across the canal and all of which require a whole load of wiggling the tiller backwards and forwards to get us under. What was a challenge on the Grand Union became somewhat fraught on this bit. We did, however, manage to find a mooring (that was large enough for us to park in) relatively close to Braunston and get moored for the night … before heading speedily for the nearest pub, a large G&T, and some food.
The following morning got off to a lovely, peaceful start as we sat in the galley with bacon butties and coffee. We watched a number of boats putter on by before I suddenly noticed that the stern line had detached itself from the bank, and we were slowly pivoting to block the canal. Thank heavens this hadn’t happened in the middle of the night as I cannot imagine the horror of waking up to find that we’d inadvertently blocked navigation along auch a busy waterway. We would not have been popular! As it was, we all swiftly leapt into action and brought the boat back round towards the bank, albeit with the central line, before casting off and heading northwards. We’re pretty sure no one saw us, so no embarrassing explanations were required.
Our second day went marginally more smoothly than the first; we made our way between boats and bank and under bridges without too many issues. Apart from the fact that we were doing it in the pouring rain. We were fully equipped with waterproofs, it was just a shame that those waterproofs weren’t entirely up to the job. I, for one, may as well have wrapped myself in tissue paper for all the good my raincoat was. Luckily, the sun came out fairly quickly, and we could shed a few layers and hang them up to dry. We made our way down to Hillmorton Locks, finally feeling like we were succeeding at the boating life.
There are three double locks here, and they were a doddle. We functioned as a well-oiled machine, even managing to cope with the fact that the boat load of day-trippers in front of us were an absolute set of clowns who had been drinking for a while and very nearly lost several of their party into the locks. The boat coming through in the other direction, however, was crewed by a lovely couple who lived on their boat all summer and swanned off to New Zealand in winter. They chatted happily after I offered to help open gates for them to get through instead of them running around madly. We also worked together to close up the lock that the clowns in front had left wide open. We wished them a fantastic day and headed down to the next set of locks. Apart from the fact that the windlasses on this lock required superhuman strength, we managed it perfectly again. The third set of locks were staffed by someone from the Canals and Rivers Trust who sadly managed to be incredibly, and unnecessarily, patronising, talking to us as if we were incapable of rational thought and hadn’t just managed to come through the previous two sets of locks with zero assistance from anyone else. I don’t know about anyone else, but I find men who talk to me as if I’m stupid by virtue of my gender almost unbearable, so I had to remove myself from the temptation of replying! We were so proud of ourselves that afternoon as we found a perfect mooring spot and secured ourselves to the bank much more securely than the previous day. Never again were we going to float away.
On the third day, the plan was to head up past Rugby, find a winding circle in which to turn around, and then make our way back to somewhere before Braunston. This would leave us a sensible amount of distance to complete on the final day so that we could moor up, ready to return the boat first thing on Monday.
This was a fantastic plan, and it started so well. Until we got to the turning round portion of the day’s activities. We followed the maps on two different apps; one on an iPhone and one Android equivalent. Weirdly, each of these located winding holes in slightly different places. That was the first problem. The second problem was that the first winding hole we came across was absolutely chock-a-block with moored boats and therefore unusable. We really didn’t want to go too far because it would give us even further to go and a very long day, so we were beginning to look a little worried. We were also a little nervous about how we would actually go about turning our giant boat. So when we finally located a winding hole, it was with slightly mixed emotions.
We pulled up our big girl pants and asked ourselves how hard it could be … which, as it turns out, was a VERY stupid question. As a very stoned hippy, smelling strongly of weed plonked himself down on a bench to watch, Helen confidently steered right towards the V shaped notch and then, when the centre of the boat was in the centre of the canal, started to reverse to make the boat pivot gently around the centre point. And this is where the second, previously mentioned, piece of key information comes into play. As we started pivoting, we realised that this was a very snug fit. In fact, we weren’t entirely sure we were going to fit. Tory gestured frantically from the front of the boat, telling us urgently that we needed to stop. Well, that wasn’t happening … narrowboats don’t have brakes. And there was no backwards space to put her into reverse. So we carried on floating forwards. Swearwords were said. Loudly.
“Bring the bargepole!”
I sprinted through the boat with the bargepole (which is much more difficult than it sounds as the path through the boat wasn’t straight and the bargepole was solid wood and didn’t bend!), emerged at the bow and gaped. The bow of the boat was wedged in between the two bright orange floats that blocked an old canal channel. We were going nowhere. We were, in a word, stuck! On investigation, the fender was the problem. We just needed a little bit of space to pull the fender up, and I was pretty sure we could get round.
“Helen, can you give us two inches space?”
The reply was inaudible, but very, very definitely negative. So, we pushed, we shoved, we wiggled, and we finally managed to shift the floats just far enough back that we could pull the fender up. Tory and I then used the bargepole to physically shove the bow of the boat round, inch by painful inch (through an overhanging willow tree) until we were facing more or less in the right direction. It was at about this point that we realised that the gods were smiling down; thanks to the intermittant drizzle, the enormous pub beer garden that was right in front of us was blessedly empty. We could hear Helen and Sal at the stern talking to various passers-by who had stopped to “assist,” but couldn’t hear details. We just kept going until Helen finally managed to find enough water to start running the engine very gently and correct our course.
We’d made it. It was only when we had a chance to regroup that we discovered that, according to one of our audience, we had just turned a fifty-four foot boat round in a fifty foot winding hole. Which feels like an achievement. Or a bad dream.
Poor Helen then had to try and work her way past another boat, which had pulled up on the wrong side of the canal and wanted to get past. As she was passing us, the crew member told us that she was crewing on her own, her boat wasn’t able to reverse, and she couldn’t see. Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. After that, we pulled in, moored up temporarily, and put the kettle on. We needed it.
Sal took over on the tiller (while Helen took some much needed deep breaths), and on we went. As Tor and I were cleaning up inside, we became aware that there was a boat about four inches off the left-hand side of the boat … and another about four inches off the right-hand side. I don’t know how Sal got through the stretch through Clifton without hitting anything, but I am seriously impressed. After that, everything else was easy.
Hillmorton locks were slightly more challenging on the way up (the water shoves you around a lot more than when you’re going down), but we managed. The hose to fill up our water tanks was the slowest I’ve ever seen, but we got there. The turn coming back under the bridge at Braunston was more harrowing than in the other direction, especially when we were accompanied by a family of swans who seemed to be a little suicidal, but Helen was incredible and we didn’t hit anything. Mooring up on both remaining nights felt familiar and easy, and we smashed it.
We’re never going to talk about having to manoeuvre the boat back into its moorings in the boat yard at Napton Junction … backwards. Suffice it to say that the instructions we were given were brief and insufficient! To be fair, the boatyard staff were working to not only get all the returning boats back into the boatyard, but also trying to get all the new hires out of the yard before the lock closed at 10.00am. They were ridiculously busy and looking a little frayed around the edges, so they perhaps didn’t have time to instruct us further.
All in all, we had a great time, but I can honestly say that it wasn’t the calm, relaxing type of holiday. Never let anyone tell you that ‘messing around on the river’ is peaceful. It is hard work. On the other hand, I may be able to imagine a world where I moved all my stuff onto a boat and pottered around. I just have to figure out where to put all my books.
absolutelynotnormal 