magpie patrick

All steel gates that look like wooden gates have been trialed on the Monmouth Canal in Cwmbran** - they survive better with little use and have a forecast design life in excess of 120 years. I was staggered by how many trees a narrow lock worth of gates needs - about 12, which is why the quality of wood used is going downhill, we can't grow them fast enough, and indeed, trying to grow them fast makes for poor quality wood. **Just for clarity this is a restoration scheme and not a CRT waterway, it's owned by Torfaen

This is likely to be considerably more than the available permanent moorings in the area I guess Those affected will range from could take a mooring but won't/don't want to, through those who entertain the notion of living "off-grid" (which isn't 100% practical in the UK) to those who have ended up in a ramshackle boat in an out of the way place having slipped past every better option on the way down having had little real choice in the matter

It is that Rabka, so when I get the chance to go there I shall makew sure to book a week or three afterwards... I'm guessing that's what I can see on Google Earth, I can see the Leipzig trip growing a bit as well then - I will need to find SOME time to go to the office in 2020!!!

A couple of questions: Those two barges being pulled have wheelhouses - are they unpowered or are they underpowered for the Oder? They look loaded but are not heaped with cargo - carrying steel perhaps? Coal often shows above the combings if a boat is fully loaded What was the character of the Oder then? extensive navigation works or entirely natural? I might see if I can find an excuse to see it for myself sometime.... Edited to add - I see they had "Big" and "Little" Wroclaw class barges, both were quite a bit larger than the Woolwich equivalents!

Does it survive out of the water? If a rat has been on your boat do you need to disinfect - it's probably a good idea anyway but is Leptospirosis a risk?

Thank you for all the responses so far! So many options.... There is a blues festival in Chateau Gontier on August 15th.... I wonder of if funds would stretch another three weeks...

Briare is being allocated a trip all of it's own!!! I reckon I need a week there....

Cross the road behind the railway station, follow the shore of the lake that is behind the Cob and you'll come to a sluice, behind which is Y Cut. Officially the Tremadoc Canal, it's about a mile long and leads to Tremadoc. It was open from about 1815 to about 1840 and brought stone down to the harbour. There was quite a lot of navigation on the rivers and the occasional canal in north west Wales, finding about them isn't easy. I have a book on it, but Amazon don't seem to know it exists, and Google is in denial on the whole subject.

If only my summer music festivals were in Murrhardt and Rabka, instead of Murrhardt and Chateau Gontier, this would be on the route between them (They're all twin towns of Frome)

And there is a canal there, which we could connect to the main system... Known locally as "Y Cut" https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4507032

Just a quick query really Events (quite literally events - festivals) may well take us to Frome's twin towns of Murrhardt and Chateau Gontier on dates just two weeks apart next summer, and we are wondering, rather than returning home and going out again whether to travel from one to the other and what we might see, especially waterway related if we did. Only CG has a navigable waterway itself, but Murrhardt seems to be not that far from the Neckar and possible routes by car take us through places such as Mannheim, Metz, Riems, Paris and Le Mans. Another route goes rather further south via Stuttgart, Baden-Baden, Neufchateau and Troyes. Any suggestions for places (with or without canals) to call on? Whilst we're at it, the World Canals Conference is in Leipzig next year - I can't actually find a canal there, but it's bot that far from the Elbe, and not too far from Berlin - any suggestions for that? The one remaining twin town is Rabka in Poland, we haven't found an excuse to go there... yet...

Bridgwater to Paulton, then via the restored Coal Canal to Dundas The perhaps Taunton to Exeter, to finish off what the Grand Western started Could I add a canal from the L&L near Haskayne to the Grand Canal near Sallins - Aqueduct or Tunnel, not fussy which 🙂

Did we ever say this imaginary canal would be appealing to boaters? Come, come... Except perhaps the Flying Dutchman, who's haunted ship never makes dock....

How about the four horsedrawn boats of the apocalypse?