harleyj

Just an update on my original topic. After getting a few replies that basically told me what we already knew that canalboat life is one of the safest places to be in the UK during a pandemic. Not many of you will know that there is only one country(not Russia, China or North Korea) that will not let it's citizens leave without special permission because of covid, Australia. Just after I started this topic with the replies that I recieved, I made my submission for exemption from the travel ban, very much thinking we had no chance. Much to my surprise on Sunday we received an email from our government granting permission. Sadly due to a shoulder issue I may need an operation in the next few weeks so this year is out but the exemption is transferable so we at least can soon start booking our flights for March 2021.

We caught one in 2018 on the same bridge, a bloke. Told him he needed his eyes checked. Gongoozlers loved it, even cheered when he got stuck, idiot.

Dr Bob you have your mask in the wrong spot!

Having a smaller population we have carried out far more testing per capita than in the UK and we in the West have been locked off from the rest of Australia for months and are approaching level five conditions here which means apart from borders being closed we are nearly back to normal. We are having 50% crowds to football games from Thursday and if there hadn't been a spike in Victoria we would have been at level 5 on Saturday. I read blogs and watch vlogs and on here of course and until I started this thread I had only heard of one probable(Rich from "Floating Our Boat") so apart from my submition to our "great" leaders I was just curious to hear from forum members. One of the side effects of all the social distancing, hand sanitizing etc is even though we are in the middle of our winter our friends and us have seen virtually no colds or flu this year.

Hopefully there aren't any others.

How many times have your public health mob been right, probably as many times as ours.

Just want a rough idea.

We are currently unable to leave our country apart from special circumstances and I am putting together a submission for us to be able to get to our boat. We have not heard of any liveaboards contracting the virus but wanted to let our government know some loose figures.

We are hoping to come back if not this year then March next year. We also paid £95 to get to watch AFL(Australian football) while we were supposed to be in the UK for six months. One game we watched before the season was postponed and now we are back home we can watch most games for free. Another one for the stiff s#@t book!

We signed up with 3 in mid March for two years, then found out that we could not get a new motor(water ingress during storms in early 2020) until the end of May so had to return to Australia on the 7th of April and now our government has closed our borders. Paying £28 per month and can't use what for three weeks was a very good service. Ah another one for the stiff s#@t book!😂🤣😭 You never know we may be allowed out in time for us to return in July.🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Our boat is at Swanley Bridge Marina on the Llangollen. Somehow while on hard standing for the last 18 months(didn't come over in 2019, lost my brother & mother) water has got into motor. Only heard last night, waiting on insurance to see if they will cover it.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Our boat is a semi-trad and we have a Beta 37. 18 years old, old enough to drink which is what it has done!

Can anyone give me a rough estimate of price for a Beta 38 New Engine.

I have been a member of this forum since 2006 and have learnt so much from lots of the participants of this forum, it is a great resource. I also watch quite a few vlogs about the canals especially this last twelve months as we could not journey to our boat this year due to family bereavements. These vlogs have given us a lot of joy and in lots of cases great information, especially Narrowboat Experience. They are informative as well as entertaining. Sure they are not everyone's cup of tea but if we all liked the same thing it would be a boring old world. We look forward to all the vloggers that we watch posting their latest vid, it gives us our fix of the canals.

We helped organise a group of four friends, also from W.A., on a four day break from Oxfordshire boats at Lower Heyford. Complete novices, said it was the best part of their holiday. They went to Oxford so that is doable, north is just as good. You will have a ball either way.