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London, England
April 22, 2006
Sean: We flew from Ireland yesterday for the next leg of our “Travels with Family” series. For this adventure we invited Shannon’s family on a narrowboat trip along the canals of England. The bucolic countryside beckons as we’ve planned a whole week traveling at the breakneck speed of 4 knots; a very relaxing pace of life, to be sure. With my Dad and step-mom Linda, my Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy rounding out the crew, we’ve reserved two boats for a total of 12 lucky sailors.
Shannon: Before setting sail, though, we spent today in London, where we met up with some of our crew. Ron (Sean’s dad) and Linda are staying at the same hotel as us, so we caught up around the breakfast table this morning before spending a day out-and-about. As anyone who has ever been to London will tell you, one day isn’t much time to see the sights in this fair city. Sean and I spent a week here with my mom a few years back; even in that amount of time we barely made a dent in all of the sightseeing possibilities. So with that in mind, we
decided to take the Big Bus Sightseeing Tour, something Sean and I had never done, to get an overview of the city. As it was a nice day and we were able to snag seats on the upper deck of the bus, it was a pretty enjoyable way to spend a few hours - and along with the audio commentary, it does give you a pretty fair sense of the city. After a recharging lunch, we popped into the Victoria and Albert Museum (we didn’t have time to give it the perusal it warranted, though, so I would like to go back to see more) and then completed our outing with a boat ride on the Thames and a leisurely dinner. Upon returning to the hotel, we learned that my mom had checked in, so I finished the day by catching up with her (and going through the travel booty she had brought us). All told, it was a very pleasant day.
Bath, England
April 23, 2006
Sean: We’ve been slowly amassing our “Krewe of Poseidon”. My Dad, Linda, Michele (Shannon’s mom), and your two plucky travelers met up with Shannon’s sister (Jackie) and her husband (Scott),
Chowin' on Fish and Chips
From left: Sean, Linda, Dad, and Michele. Theresa and Mike are hiding out there in the background. Shannon’s god-parents (Theresa and Bill) and their son (Mike) this morning at Paddington station where we assembled before catching the train to Bath.
After arriving we all checked into our respective hotels and met up for some fish and chips later. If you’re ever in Bath and are looking for some
tres tasty morsels of deep fried cod, you really need to go to Seafoods Fish and Chips Shop. A word of caution is in order though - as Linda found out the hard way - when you are getting your food for take away, THE KETCHUP IS NOT FREE! I cannot emphasize this enough. You do not want to raise the ire of the Chip Man as my poor step-mom did. This is very different for us Yanks as we envisage the sweet tomato sauce as a disposable condiment, but in England (or at least at this particular establishment) it seems their very profit margin hinges on whether you are a dainty pourer or you prefer to drown your fries. Ye be warned!
Arriving today by car were the last two members of our Krewe, Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy. They are tooling around Europe in a
rental car and had taken the “Chunnel” this morning to meet us here.
Finishing out the evening, we went on a comedy walking tour of Bath that was pretty funny - a bit of history thrown in with magic and lots of humor. The guy giving the tour was fairly good and he had a few laugh-out-loud jokes along with some standard guillotine-that-doesn’t-cut-through-the-lady’s-head-but-slices-carrots routines.
Bathhampton, England
April 24, 2006
Shannon: After a delicious English breakfast (heavy on pork and bread, just like the Irish) the whole group met up again to do a wee bit of sightseeing before our 3 p.m. appointment to pick up the boats. Bath is one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites and it definitely deserves the distinction. First inhabited by the Celts, it was later settled by the Romans around 60 AD as a resort town, on account of the naturally occurring hot spring located there. Over time they built a huge spa complex on the site, complete with temples, and built the city up around it. With the fall of the Roman Empire, Bath went through several periods of resurgence and decline before finally rising to prominence again in the 18th
century. It is from this period that Bath gained most of its Georgian architecture, which is still in evidence today.
With only a few hours for sightseeing, we decided to spend our time seeing Bath Abbey, one of the most prominent attractions in the city and located right next to the Roman Baths. It’s a beautiful cathedral both inside and out, though I was most captivated by the scenes captured in stone on the exterior of the west facade. On that wall, rising up both sides, are angels climbing up ladders on their way to heaven (though a few - naughty ones? - are also seen climbing down). I just really liked the symbolism of it.
Sean We’ve seen a lot of churches, mosques, cathedrals, basilicas, etc. since we’ve been on the road and we didn’t want to spoil our record by neglecting one of England’s finest. Bath Abbey - with its medieval style - is very typical of what I think an English church should look like. Also typically it has etched marble and granite head stones commemorating long dead people inscribed on the floor, like Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’ve always felt a little
Neil Explaining the Boats
Neil was the manager for the company and the one who gave us our briefing. From left are Bill, Dad, Shannon and Uncle Joe uneasy stepping on someone’s grave, but there’s no way around it.
Shannon: After a rejuvenating lunch at The Wife of Bath restaurant (named for one of the characters in Chaucer’s saucy Canterbury Tales) we traveled by bus and car to pick up our two boats from the boatyard just outside the village of Monkton Combe, a tiny little hamlet a few minutes outside Bath. After loading our luggage on board and checking out our digs for the next week, we reassembled for some instruction. The gentleman who runs the rental company, Neil, went over the general workings of the boats, concentrating heavily on such things as how the boilers work, pumping the bilge, etc and only devoted about -
hmmm - 4 minutes to how we actually navigate with these giant hulks of steel (not that those other things aren’t important, but I had expected that letting 12 narrowboat novices loose on the canals of England would at least deserve a good 15 minutes of training). In hindsight, I suppose, it didn’t matter that much, as the boats ended up being very intuitive to drive, but it did surprise me at the time. In any case, just getting out
Sommerset Coal spur
We thought this looked narrow. We didn't have any idea what narrow really was until we saw the bridge abutment we were going to have to pass through... of the boatyard looked to be a sink or swim proposition, so to speak. The boatyard is located on a spur (called the Sommerset Coal Canal) off the main Kennet & Avon Canal - and basically amounts to little more than a narrow channel of water with boats moored on all sides. After navigating a quarter mile or so down this waterway, it opens up into the wider main canal - but not before you have to thread through an extremely narrow bridge embankment. When I say narrow, I mean
narrow - if either boat had more than a foot of play on either side I would be surprised. Our first test was upon our skippers and they both passed with flying colors.
Sean: Having conquered our first challenge, we putted off in our steel behemoths (60 feet by 7 feet - they’re not called “narrowboats” for nothing) back in the direction of Bath trying not to do too much damage. This section of the canal does not present too many challenges, with only a few swing bridges to learn to operate. The swing bridges are exactly what they sound like. Someone is let off the boat a short
Michele and Bill at the swing bridge
Scott and Jackie are bringing the boat around after dropping them off. distance before the low hanging bridge (there are moorings for this) and they take the official British Water Ways key (included on the boat) to unlock the padlock securing this over water route in it’s position keeping road/foot traffic inline. The lucky person then heaves with some force to get it swinging out of the way so the boat can pass through. When done you just swing the bridge back in place and join your already scheduled narrowboat adventure in progress (even at top speed, it doesn’t require much to overtake the boats as you jog along the parallel running paths).
After our late-ish start, we decided to stop after about an hour’s travel at the village of Bathhampton, which has a decent canal side pub (named the George Inn), and moored for the night (it’s interesting to note that to get to Monkton Combe, it only took about twenty minutes by bus, but on the canal we’ve traveled an hour and are only about halfway back to Bath). This is the life. Plenty of decent ales, fattening English food, and only a short stumble to our bunks, the week is looking to shape up nicely.
Shannon: Talk
The George Pub - Bathhampton
Just a short stumble between the pub and our bunks. about glamour parking - the main entrance to The George Inn is steps off the footpath that runs along the canal. And we were able to find ample space to moor right in front. We couldn’t have gotten any closer if we had parked in the parking lot.
The boats themselves seem pretty good. We’ve divided our motley lot into teams of 6 people - my mom, Jackie, Scott, Bill, Theresa and Mike are the crew of the
Forth, while Ron, Linda, Uncle Joe, Aunt Nancy, Sean and I are holding court on the
Eynsham. Our boat is a bit newer than the
Forth, though theirs has two heads (bathrooms), so it’s a toss-up to which is better. Each comes equipped with a stocked galley, bathroom (complete with a small shower), beds with linen and a TV. All the conveniences of home…
Bath, England
April 25, 2006
Shannon: Waking up to the chatter of ducks outside our windows, we rose to greet our first full day on the narrowboats. After a quick breakfast and look around the small town of Bathhampton, we set off for Bath, which is only about an hour away by canal. The
Bath
Our moorage in Bath plan was to find a place to moor, set ourselves up for the night and then spend at least one more day seeing what Bath had to offer.
It was a very easy cruise into Bath - no “traffic” to speak of and we found a spot to moor both boats with a minimum of hassle. Bath is basically the end of the Kennet & Avon Canal - after passing through a set of 5 locks you descend to the level of the River Avon, upon which you can continue on to Bristol. Rather than go through the locks, though, we chose instead to moor above them at a very peaceful quay across from some Georgian houses and a short 10 minute walk to the center of town.
At the time the canal was built, the wealthy residents of Bath insisted that the canal be hidden from sight as much as possible, ostensibly to protect their delicate sensibilities from having to view the unseemly riff-raff who would have used it for commerce. In areas where the canal had to be crossed, beautiful stone and iron bridges were erected. Today this makes for a wonderful entrance to the city
as you pass along stone walls, under bridges and meander through what feels to be the backyards of Bath’s well-heeled society folk. Indeed, the residents of Bath today have discarded the thinking of their forefathers and embraced the canal as an enhancement to their fair landscape, as you can see that canal acreage is now very desirable and sought-after. Those that have the good fortune of close proximity seem to take full advantage by means of small docks and garden paths leading to it.
Sean: After locking the boats for the day, we ambled throughout the beautiful city. As Shannon mentioned earlier, Bath is so named because of the Roman Baths that were built here over a naturally occurring hot spring. Unfortunately today you can’t actually bathe in the baths of Bath. This pleasure of the Romans is off limits to everyone and the closest you can get to reliving the experience is to tour the museum that housed the main heated pools of ancient times. This city was an outpost of the empire but - as is evident from the architecture - wasn’t just a backwater like some of the forgotten Roman cities we’ve toured in the Middle
East. With the thermal pools claiming to heal all infirmities, this was a highly sought after destination unto itself.
Shannon: The museum at the Roman Baths is very good and the free audio tour is excellent at explaining the functions of the various rooms. The complex as a whole is much, much larger than I expected and it took us several hours to go through it all. After thoroughly immersing ourselves in the museum, Sean and I headed off to do some much needed laundry and stock up on some groceries, then met up with the group again for another wonderful meal.
Before calling it a night, we reached another milestone: the successful transport through our first sets of locks. As I said before, Bath is the end of the line for the Kennet & Avon Canal and we’ve decided to head off tomorrow for Bradford on Avon, a small town on the canal located east of Bath. To get there, we needed to turn the boats around and head back the way we came. As you can’t turn these 60’+ long boats around just anywhere, this entails continuing down through the first two sets of locks before
Our First Lock
The boat off to the side was rented by a couple with two little boys - one of the many groups we ran into repeatedly. we reach a specified turn around point. At dinner this evening we decided it might be best to attempt this tonight while there was very little traffic on the river, giving ourselves ample time to go through the learning curve.
Sean: The mechanics of the locks are actually very simple. Each lock is made up of two sets of wooden lock doors, one at the “lower” end of the lock and one at the “upper” end. Each of these doors has a flood gate (called a sluice) that opens or closes to either introduce or cut-off water flow. Since the level of the canal where we are moored is higher than the level of the river in Bath, our first step was to lower ourselves through the locks, before turning around and doing the opposite to return. To operate the first lock, we opened the sluice gates on the upper gate doors and filled the lock. When it was filled we opened those doors and drove the boats in (the locks can accommodate two boats side by side…barely), closed the doors and then closed the sluice gates. The next step was to open the lower sluice gates to let
Lowering
Notice the massive leakage in between the lock doors. the water out and equalize us to the lower pond. From there we just drove out of the lock and into the lower holding pond. Operating each flood gate takes quite a bit of arm turning (the sluice gates are opened and closed via a crank mechanism), but we’ve got a large amount of AB’s (Abled Bodied Seamen) about to perform the grunt work (myself included). Except for the manual operation of the gates, the size of the traversing vessels and the malaria, this is exactly like the Panama Canal. (FYI - The Kennet and Avon Canal trust has a nifty interactive page you can access by
clicking here, that allows you to operate the locks with only the click of your mouse).
Bradford on Avon, England
April 26, 2006
Sean: We spent a very relaxing day putting along the canal between Bath and Bradford on Avon, where we spent the night. Technically this wasn’t a very challenging stretch. It had only a few 90 degree turns to worry about. You can be certain that I calculated the lateral accelerations at our top speed and decided that no precautions needed to be taken when we finally performed these
dangerous maneuvers.
Along the way we stopped at a great canal side attraction: The Claverton Pumping Station. Long made obsolete, it was used to replenish our current stretch of the canal by pumping additional water into it from the Avon River (because of the canal’s high use, the natural replenishment wasn’t enough to keep up with the loss of water through the locks, so pumping from the river became necessary). The canal is still replenished by the river, but now it’s all done with a small, indiscrete pump, hidden piping and an electronic control box no bigger than a shed. The old pumping station itself though is an interesting attraction that’s been restored and maintained very well for the last few decades. A full contingent of people were on hand to give us a tour and explain the mechanics and, needless to say - amidst all these huge wheels, human sized pistons, and two story lever arms - I was having a great time and found a kinship with the geeky and verbose engineer who showed us around.
Shannon: Bradford on Avon is a charming little village about 9 miles from Bath by canal (and only about 15
minutes by car), which might give you some idea of the idyllic pace of life aboard these boats. Let’s just say that it is a life not meant for those in a hurry. We passed by some of the most scenic sections on this stretch of the canal today, an area once known as the “Dry Stretch” because of the persistent problems this segment had in maintaining water levels sufficient for navigation. The Claverton Pumping Station (as Sean describes above) helped to rectify the situation, and improvements to the canal itself (principally relining the canal bed with concrete to stop the water leaks) cemented the solution. Today the section is a lush forested area set in a beautiful valley with (on a day like today, at least) sunlight dappling through the trees. It truly was beautiful. This section of the canal also passes over the Dundas Aqueduct, which carries the canal from one side of the valley to the other. As we passed by, I hopped off and ran down the stairs beside the Aqueduct to snap a picture before running back to the top to rejoin the boat (it’s hard to get left behind when the boats are traveling
at a pace of 4 knots).
Bradford on Avon is a quaint little town, smaller than Bath, but equally as charming. We will be spending more time here on the return trip, so for the time being we contented ourselves by taking a stroll and then eating dinner at - what else? - another canal-side pub. Are you sensing a pattern?
Sean: Our original plan was actually to continue west from Bath on the Avon River to Bristol, but we were talked out of taking the narrowboats on the this stretch for a couple of reasons that included: not much to see along the route, sometimes the river runs high - making navigation difficult - and there not being much to see in Bristol. We heeded this advice and actually met many people throughout the rest of the week who agreed that not going to Bristol was the correct decision. This worked out fortuitously for my dad as he rang an old friend from the Royal Navy whom he’d served with back in the waning days of the Cold War. As luck would have it, Clive had just stepped in the door from a vacation in France and
The Barge Inn at Seend
That's the Forth in the foreground. Nothing like pulling up at the front door for lunch. lives just a few minutes from our mooring site in Bradford. He came down, met us and proved to everyone once again that the world is actually a very small place.
Devizes, England
April 28, 2006
Shannon: Having now become old-pros at narrowboating, we set out yesterday from Bradford on Avon for the town of Devizes. Getting there turned out to be very enjoyable. We tackled 4 locks and 4 swing bridges in the morning, not a lot of work but enough to keep us from being sedentary. After pausing for another good pub lunch at the canal side Barge Inn in Seend, we headed off again to tackle the remaining 3 locks and 2 swing bridges before our arrival at the bottom of the Caen Hill locks. There we set up our moorage for the night and a group of us headed into the town of Devizes to do a little reconnaissance.
The Caen Hill locks are noted in our waterway guide as being one of the most impressive structures in the entire UK waterway system, and indeed they turned out to be very imposing. Set on a wooded hill, boats surmount 237 feet in
The Caen Hill Flight
That's a whole lotta work right there. elevation to reach the top by passing through 29 locks, 16 of which are in a straight line. As you can imagine, no small amount of effort is required to tackle this flight of locks, and many people advised that you should block out a substantial part of your day for the effort.
Sean: For our group, the Caen Hill flight of locks will serve as our turn-around point to begin making our way back to the boatyard, as the 29 locks would’ve proven to be a bit more work than we were bargaining for on this trip (we’d also have to come back down on the return). Each lock takes about 10-15 minutes to pass through (and lots of arm turning), and even with our well populated Krewe (and by this time heavily experienced in the ways of lock gates) the thought of that much work while on holiday gave us all a fright. Instead we trekked the hour up-hill along the path to witness the spectacle that would’ve awaited us. A few hearty souls were traveling through, but they were in the minority - while our moorage along the canal path at the bottom was fairly crowded.
Shannon: It was fun to see the boats going through and we even learned a few tricks about working the locks by watching some of the crews, some of whom have obviously been doing this for a while. All week I’ve had a lot of admiration for those people who only have a small group of people on board because it means that the people working the lock gates (opening the doors, cranking to close or open the sluice gates, shutting the gates) have to hustle to get it all done efficiently. Remember, too, that to operate the lock doors on both sides of the canal usually involves someone walking over the top of the lock to get to the other side, as there is not always a pedestrian bridge available at each lock. So maybe that gives you some idea why having a large group like ours makes it much easier, as our crowd (2 boats with 6 people on each) has more than enough people to station at least one able-body at each lock gate plus a few on board to help the driver. One of the tricks that I learned from watching one particularly good crew,
Wadworth Brewery Clydesdales
The local brewery in Devises still delivers its kegs to the pubs using this classy form of transport. though, was that if your driver is pretty skilled, you only need to open one of the two lock doors, as the boat can fit through (with a few spare inches on either side) without opening the other side. This allows you to do everything from one side of the canal (and saving a bit of work), plus once the nose of the vessel is in, the door that you left closed helps to keep the boat sliding in straight. This trick wouldn’t work for us, as we need both gates open to get the two boats in the lock side-by-side, but it was impressive to watch.
We also got a chance to talk to a few people on the walk up the hill and learn a little bit about them. While it seems that a good amount of the boats cruising around are rentals like ours, many other people own their own boats and there even seems to be a fair percentage that lives on them year-round. It’s fascinating to sneak a peak through some of the open windows to see how people have managed to set up a home inside such small spaces (I think the average
Tasty Salad
It's not all bangers and mash. cabin size on a boat like ours is only about 300-330 square feet, and ours are large vessels). So obviously space-management is an issue. The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” comes to mind, and many seem to have come up with ingenious little schemes to make the most of their space. The boats themselves seem to mirror many of the personal tastes of their occupants, and so far we’ve seen everything from neat-as-a-pin boats with little lace curtains and pretty painted scenes on the side to the more “bohemian” boats with peeling paint and stuff stashed everywhere (including the roof). In one interesting case, we saw a boat that the owners had completely sodded the roof and put the finishing touches on it by growing flowers in the turf. And in the more remote sections of the canal, some enterprising people have even set up little “yards” around their mooring area, mowing the grass, planting flowers and putting out their trash cans. It’s certainly a way of life for some people.
Sean: After a look around town, we returned to have dinner at another pub and then tucked in for the evening. All week long we’ve been
The Forth and The Eynsham
Jackie's holding court on the left with Aunt Nancy and Linda on the bow of our boat making sure Captain Dad doesn't take out any swans. eating pub food, and while it hasn’t all been gourmet, we got to experience some true British food (I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t all that bad). With plenty of meat pies, sausages, mashed potatoes and curries (but very little vegetable matter) some of it has been quite tasty. Washed down with a few pints of the local brew and it seems even better.
In Devizes, we did a little laundry and meandered through the narrow streets that only a small English town can offer. Not too interesting for the locals, but for folks from the West Coast of North America, it had some charm. My Dad, Linda, Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy took off for Avebury, site of one of the famous rock rings, which was not only quite close but reported to be much, much better than Stonehenge.
Shannon: The rest of us puttered the day away around Devizes, having lunch and visiting the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust museum, which was very interesting. They had a very informative interactive display regarding the canal, which we happily listened to for quite some time. It gave us a lot of background on why the canals
Grace Personified
We learned that all the swans in England are the property of the Queen. Seriously. were built, who worked on the canals, what life was like for those people and why the canals eventually declined in importance to become more of a holiday pastime rather than one devoted to commerce. It also gave a lot of specific information regarding the Kennet and Avon Canal, just one of many canals in the entire UK system. Without boring you too much, following is a bit of that information:
With the Industrial Revolution, demand was high in Britain for a reliable and economic means of transporting large quantities of goods to markets throughout the country. At the time, the only means of doing so were to ship the goods via sea (which was hazardous due to the often stormy conditions and the pirating of goods by foreign ships) or to take them overland via horse and cart (unsatisfactory due to the small loads that could be carried). By the 1760’s the first private canal venture opened and became an immediate economic success, leading others to contemplate opening other canal routes. By the 1780’s, canal mania was officially sweeping the nation, and hundreds of miles of canals were being built (of which 4,000 miles were eventually completed). Construction
of the Kennet and Avon canal began in 1794 to link the Rivers Kennet and Avon, which had been made navigable in the 1720’s. The canal was finally completed 16 years later in December 1810 and was a very profitable venture for more than 30 years, carrying stone from Bath and coal from the Somerset coalfields, among many other things. But in 1841, with the opening of the Great Western Railway, traffic on the canal began to decline (ironically, canal barges were used to transport the raw materials for the railway, quickening the demise) and by the early 1930’s the canal suffered from lack of maintenance and was in a state of disrepair.
In 1948, with the nationalization of the railway system, the canal now fell under the authority of British Waterways. With little commercial traffic using them, there was a call in 1955 for many of the canals (including the Kennet and Avon) to be closed permanently. Staunch supporters of the canal system, led by a conservancy group called the Inland Waterways Association, began mobilizing volunteers to restore the canals, which by then were heavily overgrown and choked with debris, and to lobby for their preservation as part
Bradford on Avon
Just moseying through the park of the historical fabric of the country. This coincided with a resurgence of public interest in the canals and through the 1960’s - 1990’s many canals were restored. The Kennet and Avon canal was officially re-opened by Her Majesty herself in August 1990.
Sean: Obviously we are happy boaters that the canals didn’t become extinct. And with all the rental companies just on this stretch of the Kennet and Avon, you can be assured that the fate of these early industrial revolution engineering feats have a fairly secure future. In fact because of the overwhelming popularity of narrowboating as a vacation option for the UK, we learned that the rental boats are booked solid throughout the majority of the year. The month of August was quoted as the “Silly Season” by a rental operator my dad happened to speak with. The allusion is that with the extreme amount of boats around, people get a little crazy.
Bradford on Avon, England
April 30, 2006
Sean: We left Devizes yesterday for a leisurely paced run back to Bradford on Avon. The last time we passed through, it was just for the night, but we scheduled a whole day
The Bridge Tea Rooms
You can't design character like this. here on our way back to the boatyard. It’s a very pretty town and lots of people were out for this bank holiday weekend to enjoy the nice weather and stroll about town. There was a craft fair at their big tourist attraction - the Tithe Barn (named because the church owned it and stored the offerings from local farms here), so walking through the town and in the market made for a very pleasant day.
Unfortunately my Dad had to leave us this morning because he had some training to attend in Dallas (which ironically we found out later was canceled). He and Linda left early in the morning and we spent the day about the town enjoying its offerings. The highlight was having cream tea in a building that was not only over 400 years old, but really looked every bit her age. The front wall bowed out as the weight of the façade appeared to strain under centuries of heavy brick. The two dimensional picture just can’t do the warped, Gaudi-esque building justice, but the tea and scones were great and the building didn’t fall down while we were there. Plusses all around.
Shannon: Perhaps
Heaven on a Plate
A little jam, some butter, a huge dollop of clotted cream, and tasty scones make for a complete meal - sugar, fat, and tasty carbs. one of the things that I am liking best about this trip is the pace of life that surrounds it: the boats don’t go that fast, so neither do you. There is a lot of time to drink tea on deck while chatting with family, or sit on the bow watching the scenery go by. Activities like feeding the ducks and swans that approach aren’t exactly taxing and there’s plenty of time to relax. There is also quite a feeling of kinship that goes with being on the boat, not only in our party, but also among the other boats you meet along the way. It’s sort of like being part of a club. And since you keep meeting up with the same people, there is a spirit of cooperation as you help each other through the locks and such. So many people that we’ve talked to so far - mostly British that we’ve met in the bars and in towns - have remarked that they’ve always wanted to take one of these trips but have never done it. It’s a shame, since it truly is a wonderful way to spend a vacation.
London, England
May 1, 2006
Shannon: It was with a bit of sadness that we began our final leg back to the Sommerset Canal spur to turn in our narrowboats. Needing to return them no later than 9 am, we had positioned ourselves last night at the small town of Avoncliff, roughly an hour away from the boatyard. There we enjoyed a final pub meal at the Cross Guns, a pub located steps away from where we were moored.
Sean: There isn’t much else at Avoncliff Aqueduct but the Cross Guns tavern, although it was still quite a popular Sunday night - probably because tomorrow is a holiday. Not only a special day for the locals, but it was our final night on the canal and we commemorated the auspicious occasion by toasting each other’s accomplishments and regaling our lusty tales of adventure. And there were no shortage of memorable stories or unforgettable experiences to be relayed. We had such a great time hanging out and traveling together that I don’t think any of us will forget it soon. This particular part of the trip has meant a lot to Shannon and I and we’re so thankful for our families that could join
God Save the Queen
This charming chap is part of the Queen's Horse Guard. Love the over-the-top uniform. us.
The small towns and relaxing pace of life really were an idyllic way to spend a week’s vacation. Surprisingly also the boats handled quite well. From a design standpoint they are not even close to being hydrodynamically efficient, are woefully underpowered, and have zero maneuverability aft. With that being said, when you get the hang of driving them (and it doesn’t take that long), the positives are that they are roomy, built very sturdily and are the absolute best way to see the countryside. I cannot rave emphatically enough about taking one of these out for a holiday, and if any of you are thinking of vacationing in the British Isles, you should seriously look into taking one of these babies for a spin.
Shannon: We rose early this morning to begin making our way back, meeting up with one other boat that was due into the same boatyard as us. Together the three boats chugged into the tiny marina and we deftly managed to turn the boats around with nary a problem. We then carried our belongings off and bid a fond farewell to Uncle Joe and Aunt Nancy, who were off again to France to
finish out their own European adventure.
The remainder of the group, now just 8 of us, ventured back to Bath, where we caught the next available train to Paddington Station in London. After relaxing briefly at our hotels, we met up again to eat a wonderful meal at an Anatolian (Turkish) restaurant not far away. It was yet one more tasty meal spent with family.
May 2, 2006
Sean: Our last day in England was spent wandering the streets of London and seeing more of the sights. With so much to see we had to choose and Shannon, Bill and I went to the Tower Bridge Experience; a thorough tour of this amazing bridge, its construction and engineering. As you’ve no doubt concluded, this is our cup of tea, so we enjoyed the exhibits, history and inner workings of this famous landmark.
We then met up with the others (Michele, Theresa and Mike) and went to Sir John Soane’s Museum. He was a famous London architect who amassed tons of antiquities and works of art throughout his life. He stored them in his house with the express desire that everything be left “as is” when
The Weir at Bath
This is the River Avon as it passes through Bath. he died and exhibited for “amateurs and students of architecture, painting and sculpture”. It really is a museum to see as it’s hard to describe every little item, important in their own way at explaining some facet or detail of art. His purpose was to allow students access before and after his lectures so they could get a better grasp of the ideas and history taught in class. It is chock-full to the rafters and very interesting.
Shannon: With that, we bid adieu to England and are heading next to Lithuania with my mom, who is planning to continue her adventure with us for another week or so.
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Nona
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Commander Ron
Love the shot of Ron in the background in "Don't Mess With Aunt Nancy". Looking for submarines? Keep up the great work! Love, Nona