Ditch crawling

Busman's holiday time. For our foreign readers, look at Wiktionary definition to understand that comment.

Andrew, the non Welsh speakng Welshman, had managed to get the use of a canal boat for a week after a dodgy sounding, eBay fuelled, Williams RIB sale that involved a couple of trade in items too. One of the payments for the RIB was a week on a narrowboat. When asked if we wanted to join in, the answer was a simple one.

So, just after the great freeze and blizzards, we drove up to Norbury junction ending up with a salt and mud crusted Defender. The yard is at an old canal junction, have a look at Norbury Wharf website for more information. The boat we had was, optimistically, named Princess. See boat overview.

Here she is:

showing off her cruiser stern. And from the bow:

You can decide which is her most photogenic side. The engine room was a little less clean than in our Nordhavn:

and the wiring and little Isuzu diesel were not quite as well maintained. However, Princess is a typical hire boat with many years (27) of cruising around under the control of novices under her belt.  Memories of working on a Norfolk Broads hire fleet boatyard when much younger came flooding back. We reckon that we were kinder to Princess than many of her prior occupants.

The Shropshire Union canal was very lovely. The guidebook calls it "unremittingly rural". They were right and it was all the better for it. We headed from Norbury, up to the Adderley lock flight towards Audlem, back down to Brewood and then returned to Norbury:

Dylan the Welsh terrier was the main crew member and had lots of fun:

Apart from needing a wash after each muddy towpath walk, he was little trouble. Linda might disagree as he liked waking her up during the night although during the day he seemed happy to snooze with her:

This is the second unflattering picture of Linda that we have published. It might be the last if she decides to remove us from her life permanently in retaliation.

Enough canine news. What about the waterway. Well, initially we were pushing lumps of ice out of the way - the canal had frozen over big time during the prior week. Some impressive icicles were still visible on the banks:

Andrew looked very serious as he piloted 62 feet of narrowboat around:

and yes, we were that close when passing the moored boat - we had to get through the bridge right next to it.  Tyrley lock flight (5 of them) allowed the crew to practice their lock winding routine. A very pretty spot in which to do so:

Market Drayton was a favourite stopover, mainly for Jones coffee shop and their excellent cake. Oh, and a little Asda supermarket too for essentials like wine.

The approach to Adderley locks was our turning point heading north:

It felt strange to be constrained in where we could turn around, needing to find a "winding hole" to allow this. The canal has some spectacular cuttings and embankments:

All the crew enjoyed their week:

even if it was a bit chilly at times. We were happy to have a solid fuel stove on board which Andrew tamed after day 1. Less amusing was a water point where the thread on the fitting was damaged. Andrew manfully stood and held the hose in place, getting very soggy from the leak as we needed to top up our water tank. We took this picture of his selfless act:

Linda took one from another angle that suggested there was another source for the water collecting on the towpath. We would not be so rude as to publish that. Why? - mainly because Linda is likely to disown us thanks to the earlier picture of her so we need to stay friendly with Andrew.

All in all an excellent week on a very different style of boat. Life at 3 mph ditch crawling suited us well.