cp140405

Oh yes! That is definitely on the agenda! We're going to be in the Chirk area for a few days before we get on the boat and are hoping to get some good photos it before trying it ourselves.

I just want to try to avoid as much congestion and traffic as we can. I realize there will a good deal of traffic in June anyway, but if I can avoid it I'll certainly try.

Thank you! Apparently Mr. Google likes you better than he likes me, because I wasn't having any luck finding that info. The Middlewich event is the complicating factor for us, so CW it is! Again, thank you for the info!

We started planning a 3 week hire out of Chirk in the late summer of 2019. It was scheduled for June of 2020 and has since been pushed back twice to this coming June. It looks like it will go ahead this time (YAY!) but I am now a little perplexed. We planned (and still do) to do the four counties ring out of Chirk. Clockwise or counterclockwise is still to be decided, but here's where my head scratching comes in. One of my sets of notes has a big "NO-FESTIVAL" scrawled over it. I seem to recall that our cruise would run into/pass through a festival somewhere along the route so one direction or the other would avoid congestion. Now I can't find any festivals or events on the four counties ring in June of this year. Am I just not finding the site with the info or was I hallucinating in 2019/2020 before COVID?

We looked at both CW and CCW options...based on our anticipated start date we would collide with a festival near Middlewich if we went round CCW. Based on that, we want to get through MIddlewich and onto another section... so that means CW for us.

We (my much better half and I) are planning on doing the Four Counties ring out of Chirk in June 2021. It was supposed to have been this June 2020, but.... We're planning on doing it over three weeks, so we can take our time... (Incidently, we spent a couple weeks on the North Island in March 2019. Loved every minute of it)

Another vote for Shire Cruisers. Had a 42 foot (Oxford) on a short mid week out and back cruise in 2017 after we finished walking the middle third of Hadrian's Wall. We were supposed to have had a three week hire this past June with Black Prince... but COVID-19 made a mess of that. Now we're rescheduled for June 2021... fingers crossed

Yes it is an unsettled time for everyone. My daughter works part-time for a local museum and is in her final semester of a French degree (she wants to teach French). The museum has been closed, but thankfully she has been given work to do at home transcribing old records. My regional government has now declared a state of emergency and the Canada/US border is now closed to all but essential traffic. What was that curse... "May you live in interesting times" ?

Exactly... information from a limited number of sources makes decision making difficult.

I'm glad you have more information to work on. I'd also like to apologize for perhaps having hijacked and diverted your original topic. It seems that most companies (airlines, hotels, car rentals etc.) are choosing to offer reasonable options to customers who may feel compelled to cancel or change bookings. Part of that is, of course, motivated self interest. Few companies could withstand the social media backlash that would arise from rigidly enforcing cancellation policies in the midst of a global pandemic. Ultimately it is you that has to make the decision based on all the information you can gather at the time. What is right for you may not be right for someone else. Nobody can second guess you. My knowledge of what is going on in the UK is limited to news reports from the BBC and emails from cousins. Please do let me know how you make out. Now, if you will excuse me... I'm off to bed... my regional government has declared a public health emergency.... my wife and I are both in healthcare jobs... I just want curl up in a little ball and suck my thumb... or perhaps find a large whiskey. ?

Just a quick update.... earlier today I received a blanket email from the hire company we are booked with. In a nutshell it states that anyone with a booking to start within the next four weeks have a number of options including rescheduling for later in the year and deferring it until the same time next year... with no loss of deposits/fees already paid. They also stated that the situation will be re-evaluated towards the end of the current four week period. I suspect (and hope) most hire companies will put similar policies in place if they haven't already.

There have been a number of very valid points raised... my (much) better half and I have had a number of conversations over the last few days regarding our June vacation. At present, we plan on going. We are both hopeful that in the little over two months to go before we leave here, that the situation will have stabilized. We're going to delay paying the final balance for a bit, but if it turns out that we have paid the balance and for some reason we have to cancel our flights... we'll deal with that if the time comes. Having said that, if I were in the UK I would not be overly concerned about taking a vacation in the UK... much like the extra long weekend trip we have booked at a cabin about 90 minutes from here.

I'm in a somewhat similar situation. We have a boat hired for three weeks in mid-June... the final deposit is due in a few weeks... unfortunately for us however, we are coming from Canada's west coast so we have the additional complicating factors of international flights at each end.

Although it is a bit late as you have already made a decision... perhaps someone else in the same situation might find it helpful. We enjoyed a mid-week "out and back" along the Rochdale Canal a couple of years ago...Shire Cruisers out of Sowerby Bridge.

Please post a trip diary or comments about your vacation. We have put down the deposit on a three week hire out of Chirk for June 2020. We'd be interested in hearing about your trip.

That is a great post! Thanks. We have hired a narrowboat out of Chirk for three weeks in June next year and plan on doing the Four Counties ring. Thankfully, our food bill and the load we have to carry back to the boat will be somewhat lighter as there will just be the two of us (our food bill for four went down by 1/3 when my son... 6'4" and 220lb... all muscle... moved out!) We also plan on having Tesco deliver a "start off order" when we get aboard the boat.

It is all a bit confusing. A UK/US cell/mobile roaming in Canada appears to be cheaper than a Canada cell roaming in the UK/US. My sister (lives in the US) pays very little when she visits here whereas I pay through the nose when I visit her. And yes... because we visit Europe relatively frequently, we do have a cheap "throw away" UK mobile we use for "local" calls and texts. Our best bet to communicate with home when abroad is to find free wifi at a pub and send a flurry of emails.

Ah... therein lies the rub...roaming data rates from Canada are horrendously expensive. The whole topic of getting a UK phone to use while there or a sim card is another discussion.

Nah, just throw up some photos on Flickr and publish something to YouTube!

I would have to get a new CEPT permit to operate in the UK... and yes, as far as I know the Marine and Air "tickets" are valid... I'm just a bit of a radio geek... and yes there is no point carrying a Marine radio on a canal. From what I have read, the UK Foundation licence would not qualify for a CEPT permit to operate over here. Yeah... just thinking out loud on my part. No, they don't need to know, but I could put the info out there for them to use if they wanted to.

Thanks everyone for the replies. One of the (unstated) objectives behind using APRS is that family could see where we are on a day-to-day basis simply by looking for my call sign. I'm not terribly interested in using GPS or APRS as an aid to navigation. They both only show you where you were when the machine last updated and not where you are right now. I think good map is sufficient on a narrow boat... plus a little bit of dead reckoning of course. Just more ideas to think upon....

We're planning on a three week hire out of Chirk this time next year. I thought it might be interesting to take my APRS enabled radio with me to obtain a "route map" of where we were at any given time. Anybody done this on a canal boat? I think a handheld coupled to a little mag-mount on the roof could provide some decent results although I do note that digis in the Four Counties ring are a bit scarce. And.... FWIW, I hold the appropriate Canadian (and US) Amateur licences in addition to Marine VHF and Aeronautical licences

We had a short "out and back" hire on the Rochdale out of Sowerby Bridge. I quite like just either side of Bridge 7 ….