ubermama

I am very interested in your experiences as thinking of doing the Four Counties Ring in a week with 6 of us on the boat. We are not afraid of some long days and like to get up early in the morning. I looked at getting to Penkridge from Autherley junction on the first day and it looks like around 5 hours. Wondering how you managed it the first day. Thanks

Thank you, I will look at the schedule again and try and even things out a bit more. It is great to tap into the experience on this forum. We are travelling from Harwich to Hoek van Holland.

Yes we are hiring from Napton Narrowboats. Our preference was for the clockwise direction, I will look into your stopping places, thanks. Thank you everyone, it is great to have such experience and knowledge passed on to use newbies. I will look into changing the stopovers a bit and maybe go to the BCM after we have dropped the boat off on the Saturday morning, but we have to get back to the ferry to go home to Amsterdam on the Saturday so maybe not enough time.

thank you, we are planning on spending the day at the Black Country Museum so were just going to travel on after the day. Would you suggest staying a second night at the BCM instead?

We are planning on doing the Black Country Ring from Autherley Junction (in May) in the clockwise direction. There will be 6 of us, 2 children aged 10 and 12 , my parents (in their 70's), my husband and I and we have a week to do it in. I am really interested to do the ring as it is so varied but a bit wary of moorings around Birmingham as I have heard it is not very safe. Would the following places be OK to stop overnight? night 1 (sat) Cross Keys, Penkridge night 2 (sun) Great Haywood night 3 (mon) The Dog and Doublet night 4 (tues) Gas Street Basin night 5 (weds) Black Country Museum night 6 (thurs) New Inn, Coseley night 7 (fri) near to Autherley Junction I know that some days will be long but we are prepared to get up early and be travelling most of the day. Any advice would be appreciated. This is our second trip as a family, I had boating experience about 20 years ago so we are not total beginners. Thank you