Wednesday 5 October 2011

Messin' about on the river


Well, to be strictly accurate my loves, we were actually travelling along a canal ;-)

Adrian and I, along with my sister and her friend Liz, recently had a week's holiday on a narrow boat on the Trent & Mersey Canal ~ this was my 50th birthday present from Amanda and Liz :-)

We started out from the Mercia Marina at Willington in Derbyshire and meandered along as far as Fazeley Junction, where we turned to make the return journey.  Luckily for you, my loves, I didn't actually get round to taking that many photographs but here are the few that I did! 


This is the narrow boat which we called home for the week.  As the name implies, sweetie~pies, narrow boats are really built for folk somewhat more narrow than the four of us LOL  I think we would probably all four of us agree that the sleeping arrangements were the worst part of the week, since the beds were ~ naturally enough ~ not very wide at all!  After the first couple of nights, Adrian decided to bed down on one of the benches in the sitting area of the boat for the rest of the week ~ not ideal, but at least the two of us got a better night's sleep than poor Amanda and Liz who were sharing the other cabin. 

To be fair, the rest of the boat wasn't that bad.  There was a nice little kitchen area and two loos, along with a very good shower.  I have to say that I rather think Amanda and I enjoyed the week somewhat more than Adrian and Liz; they both said that they are glad to have had the experience but aren't in any hurry to repeat it! 


Adrian, Amanda and Liz at the "steering end" of the boat.

Our week didn't get off to the best start since the country was being rocked by the tail-end of Hurricane Katia!  We decided to simply tie-up for the night once we had come out of the marina, which even experienced boaters were doing.  It was something of a baptism by fire but at least the wind died down for the rest of the week!


We encountered lots of swans on our journey along the canal, some of which had almost-adult youngsters with them


Swans really are the most beautiful creatures :-)


They are obviously extremely used to the boat traffic and were always on the look-out for a tasty treat!


A rather forlorn dead tree, which caught my eye ~ though not literally, of course, sweetie~pies ;-)


One of the many bridges we passed beneath on our journey.

Since Adrian and I were in charge of opening and closing the lock gates, I didn't manage to take any photos of them.  Some were very deep, which showed how high we were climbing ~ something not always apparent just by looking at the surrounding landscape.


A lovely scenic view along the canal :-)






This quaint little vehicle was at Fradley Junction, one of the places we tied up for the night.  Such a pretty shade of blue, don't you think my loves?



Some of the ducks at Fradley Junction, having a little siesta.  I wasn't best pleased to be woken by them before it was barely even light, as they pecked along the side of the boat for tasty morsels, I can tell you!


Amanda and Liz at Fradley Junction :-)



2 comments:

Sharon said...

That sounds like a lot of fun, except maybe the tail end of Katia part! I think I would enjoy a trip like that! Nice pictures!

SharonLarkin said...

Yes, we had fun and lots of laughs. It was much more active than I think any of us were expecting ~ despite eating lots of "naughty" things and consuming waaaay more alcohol than I would normally do, I didn't gain a single pound LOL