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Post by onlyMark on Apr 4, 2024 19:34:31 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 4, 2024 20:49:03 GMT
The lock helper made up for the restaurant scam, but it easily could have been the other way around. Travelling is a constant adventure (and risk).
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 4, 2024 21:11:04 GMT
Brilliant. How did you sleep on the barge? I went on a barge holiday with some pals as a 19 yo. In the late 70s. Us girls just draped ourselves on the barge roof in our bikinis whilst the lads flexed their muscles and bumped into bridges, banks...other barges...It was a good holiday...all of us agreed 'no pairing up' so it was just a laugh.We slept well but then we drank a LOT in the evenings.
I can't imagine doing a trip on my own tho...you are very brave.
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 4, 2024 21:17:58 GMT
I offered Bob the Lock to buy him a pint or two and he refused.
I slept well Cheery. No doubt because of the physical exercise and fresh air. I think there must be various degrees of brave because there are lots who do it by themselves, either as a holiday or living alone on them and I saw it as just something to be done.
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Post by bjd on Apr 5, 2024 4:48:17 GMT
It looks and sounds like a great holiday. Too bad the weather appears rather gray and drizzly much of the time, but then I guess this was in March?
I find it interesting that people whose houses back onto the canal seem to have reclaimed the land all the way to the water. Would this be private land, or does it belong to the state or whoever maintains the canals?
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Post by htmb on Apr 5, 2024 8:18:12 GMT
The lock helper made up for the restaurant scam, but it easily could have been the other way around. Travelling is a constant adventure (and risk). I read this bit and realized I’d missed a whole section. An important one, too! Nice report, Mark! I enjoy hearing about travels on the canals. I can’t imagine ever doing a trip on my own. Too much work with the locks, but I’d really like the mooring up in the middle of the countryside parts.
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Post by patricklondon on Apr 5, 2024 11:01:53 GMT
I've only ever done one narrowboat holiday, with an old friend and his family, on the other side of the country. With several of us, the locks seemed quite easy to get the hang of, though judging how much water to let through in a flight of several was trickier. And one morning we woke up at an angle, since some clown (not us) had left a sluice open and the whole section of canal had drained away - took several hours to fill up again. I lived in Stoke for a while umpty-something years ago, so it was good to see what it looks like now. When I was a child - even longer ago - we lived near the Thames and my father bought not so much a cabin cruiser as a lash-up conversion of a ship's lifeboat - only camping-style lighting, cooking and sanitation. We made one holiday trip up to the prettier parts of the upper Thames, where the locks are all operated by professional lock-keepers who take great pride in their gardens and the display of lawns and flowers. But if a boat needs to fill up water or dispose of waste, you have to be pretty nippy climbing up the steps in the walls of the lock, which of course get slippery with water and weed - we still recall The Day Dad Dropped The Elsan... My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 5, 2024 16:45:26 GMT
htmb, the countryside mooring ups are really good for sure.
Nothing like boating life Patrick.
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 5, 2024 17:52:19 GMT
Would this be private land, or does it belong to the state or whoever maintains the canals? I'm not sure myself. I know some own the land down to the water but the example above I doubt it. Who does then, no certain idea.
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Post by lugg on Apr 5, 2024 19:38:18 GMT
Bob the Lock mustsurely be acknowledged as an unsung hero
The last photos leave no doubt that you are in the Potteries , what confused me was the milestone marker to Litchfield...that cannot be correct can it ? But on checking I find it is or thereabouts . I don't know why but that really befuddled me .
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 5, 2024 20:14:24 GMT
I didn't pay much attention to those mileage markers as there was no way I'd be going that far. I see what you mean though.
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