Underway and loving it

[DandV]

Started with the Aylesbury Great Escape, 22 boats broke out of the broken Aylesbury Canal, Actually they were trucked out. At the due time we bowhauled Whio under the crane after having restowed cupboards and deck equipment for the 15mile road journey from Aylesbury to Bletchley. A friend had joined us to witness the unconventional start of our boat journey. With minimum drama and absolutely no paperwork, who said the Brits were absolute bureaucrats? the boat was lifted aboard a low loader which we followed by car, out and then back in and through Aylesbury to an en-route sustenance stop at a roadside cafe, before making it to the side of “The Grand Union” where we were rapidly relaunched but facing the wrong way, so we had a two mile round trip to a turning point.

A couple of hours later we dropped our friend off, for what turned out to be a long walk back to his car and shortly afterwards moored up for the night well short of our intended destination. The next morning we refilled our water tank to have the water point then taken by more kiwis but on a hire boat. Only managed a short journey the next day in gale winds and needed rescuing by other canal boaters when the wind blew the boat against the wrong bank at Wolverton. Learnt rapidly that bow thrusters do have their place, earlier deployment would have saved some of the embarrassment. Shared some locally obtained Marlborough savi with our Welsh rescuers on Kathryn.

Spent three days getting to Braunston with Val enhancing her locking techniques. Fortunately the untidy effort on the first of the Stoke Buerne flight was not witnessed and by the time we got to the third one and a possi of photographers things were tidy.

Shortly before we entered Braunston tunnel we met coming the other way the replica steam powered tunnel tug Hasty and failed to realise the significance. Just short of the entrance I wondered why our engine noise had increased dramatically. Once inside we realised that a boat coming against us had a huge unsilenced diesel that was under considerable load. Like sharing a tunnel with a fully loaded freight locomotive. We could see very little due to the residue smoke of the steamer before, the S bend of the tunnel and that the opposing boat had its tunnel light obscured until we were directly alongside. We passed, safely, a laden 70ft boat towing a 70ft butty in the pitch black.. Did bounce of the walls a couple of times as the smoke obscured our vision. Did not not like that much and our ears rang for some time afterwards.

Approaching one boatyard on the first warm day of the year, we were greeted by name, It was Matty40s, who we had engaged as our boat search consultant, and who was blacking the hull of a boat. He came on board Whio and endorsed our purchase over a glass of wine. We passed him going the other way yesterday and stopped to exchange greetings mid canal. Today we are in Coventry and had our first ever visit to an Ikea, ghastly, and hopefully made big steps into finalising a UK bank account to have an EFTPOS card that works in shops as well as ATM’s. Tomorrow sightseeing then off to the Ashby to escape back into the countryside. Heading up to Cheshire then Wales mid May

We have learnt the intricacies of emptying toilet cassettes and have put up some extra clothes hooks and towel rails. Snagged the front button on a GU lock, but the recovery process worked before things went to custard. Stainless steel screws or even brass are barely obtainable even in the largest builders suppliers and square drive simply non existant, even the largest assortments of driver bits and screw drivers simply do not include square drive tooling. Val has commissioned the oven to produce a couple of batches of very passable yeast buns.

We love our sky blue and cream boat, and our newfound holiday lifestyle, and have been impressed with the friendliness of the people we have met.

[Ray T]

Welcome to my home City.

[matty40s]

Great to meet you both at last, twice!!

Doesn't Whio look lovely!!

[Kiwidad]

Kia Ora :-) Welcome to the waterways. Look forward to meeting soon.

[cheshire~rose]

A very unusual start to a journey. Thanks for sharing. Enjoy yourselves

[Alanji]

Welcome - at last. Sounds like you had a baptism of fire! I have followed your progress with interest.

May meet up with you in May - I will be starting down the Llangollen next week.

[matty40s]

Alan, it's up.....

[Kiwidad]

Are you still on the Ashby? We have just turned onto it today, after a day in Coventry. What a great city, even though we were alone in the basin!

[DandV]

No since the Ashby have been up and down the Caldon but the curtain at the last lock suggested that the final tunnel into Froghall required much more ballast forward to prevent an unfortunate wedgie. Now at Chirk still heading into a North Westerly, seems like for the last two months. All going well except while leaving a lock landing just snagged a protruding bit of armourgaurd that just snagged the square edged eberspacher skin fitting and tore it from the hull. Temporarily repaired with the mooring mallet and self tappers, but Lidle supermarket in Whitchurch had a very nice thread tap set at a good price so now fastened with machine screws tapped into the hull. Thoroughly enjoying our one bedroom flat that we can so simply change the view and the neighbourhood. People are great too even if they are overly keen to talk about the second half of a recent cricket match.

 

Don and Val

[Kiwidad]

Yes, the second half was bad :-) We will no doubt catch up at some point as we are heading 'up' as well

[Barry]

thoroughly enjoyed the second half of that test match I have to say.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

well just because I'm English I suppose - and on that day the English bowling, particularly from Broad was just outstanding

[Tunneltug]

Dear DandV,

 

Sorry but I have to point out that my steamer Hasty was producing no smoke what so ever that trip. I was, as always, using dry, smokeless Welch steam coal which had not been stoked for 20 minutes before entering the tunnel which means the fire was "White" i.e. the volitiles were all burned off and no smoke was produced at all. If there was any smoke or fumes in the tunnel it will have come from diesel fuel not from Hasty. I did blow off once but being steam in a cold tunnel this wouldn't have hung around for more than a few seconds.

 

The assumption that steamers leave a lot of smoke is not true and it can be seen at shows like Braunston that a big lister will pump out much more smoke that any well managed canal sized steamer, this is why steamers were used as tunnel tugs right up until the 1930's even though diesel engines were commonplace.

 

Cheers, Keith