The Toad in the Hole

Don't reach for the pole - try floating off first Don't get the pole out unless you need it - the number of boats on the llangollen which feature someone stood in the middle of the boat looking like a tightrope walker has to be seen to be believed. In fairness I've only seen someone try to go through a bridge like that once, and yes I laughed In fact, you really don't need that pole. Put. It. Down.

I notice you haven't mentioned the Wheelbarrow eating serpents - After it was PA'd to 20,000 people, was it returned?

I have an old, 35' narrowboat with limited facilities, only really water, a toilet, a cooker and and a stove. She's insured, BSCd and we've done a couple of longish trips with her. She's not pretty and does need periodic up keep, but we spent a lot less than 10k to buy, and moorings are the only big ongoing expense. But by a lot of boaters standards we're young (ish) and have a holiday history of walking, camping, climbing and mountain refuges. If you look on a boat as a second home, and you like TV, dishwashers and hand build replica engines you're easily spending stupid money, but I like to thing I've got a floating bothy - basic, but warm and dry. you can boat on a budget, and to be honest it's more fun than some of the floating static caravans that you see around.

I've done something very similar last weekend at Llangollen - there are 2 campsites (Tower and Wern Isaf) in easy walking distance of the canal and numerous B&Bs. I've also had friends camp at the Cotton Arms at Wrenbury, but I'm not so sure about B&B accom in the village. They've also camped at a site very near to the Prees Branch (can't remember the name) but be warned - the horseflies there were a nightmare (pardon the pun)

because of the history of salt mining in these parts, the conductivity of the chesire T&M is probably higher than most tidal navigations. PS my inlaws were all Northwich ICI

What counts as a crash? I've seen countless nudges and a few more substantial wallops on the Llangollen, mostly down to pressure of numbers and inexperience. Nothing more substantial than a bit of black in the main. However last year a Black prince hire boat hit the dry dock at Trevor hard enough to rupture his diesel tank - made something of a mess. My boat was in the DD at the time

The Lyneal Trust near Ellesmere on the llangollen offer boats and holidays with disabled facilities. I don't know any more than that but I've often seen their boats about, and they might be what you're looking for

Ok, I don't want to get pigoenholed this early into what I hope is a long and illustrious posting history along the lines of "the best bacon sarnie within an hours cruising of hawksbury junction" or "the best improvised device for removing frogspawn from my water tank" but... Ad hominem criticism is the refuge of the bounder, but Steve McIntyre (of climateaudit) isn't entirely free of Engine Salesman Syndrome. He's worked in mineral exploitation (go Wikipedia) which is an industry generally with a vested interest in downplaying man induced global warming, but I'd heard of him because he was one of the people who attempted to discredit the "hockey stick" graphs of recent climate change. I'm on a little safer ground here, as working with peat, I've come across a lot of work on paleoclimatic reconstruction from peat cores (peat is an excellent record of historic vegetation, and therefore what the climate was like). He found some errors in the way NASA had been calculating temperature averages, which he then used to cast doubt on the whole process (ironic, given that incorrect extrapolation of data from two sources was his main criticism of NASA). However, in the UK, we don't just have to take the word of NASA, as we have some of the best historical continuous temperature recording in the world, so we can look at our own data, from places like the Ratcliffe Observatory or Durham University, and we can draw our own graphs. Plus, I've got 20m of peat core that will give you a fair indication back to the last ice age. Guess what? It's getting hotter Which isn't to say it's man induced. The evidence for that is a whole lot thinner. But Warming itself? that's real enough. And Steve McIntyre wasn't wrong. He correctly identified an error and brought it to wider attention. That's how it's supposed to work. And the IPCC report(s) were peer reviewed by practically the whole US government. Most of it's findings were toned down under pressure from them. The published findings of the IPCC were the least worst scenarios. Anyway, I've got a big diesel car, a slightly bigger diesel boat and I know what the inside of an aeroplane looks like, but I'm not convinced that hairshirts are the way forward, either. Buy locally, at least read the energy efficiency stats on your next fridge/ cooker before you buy it, and turn the PC off if you're going out. Speaking of which....

Good point I didn't even go near the "everyone has an angle, you're only saying that because you have a vested interest" argument. There's a process called peer review which can be a problem in the "political" arena. All proper scientific research is subject to review by others who have expertise in the field. To an extent it's a very political business, with boffins scoring constant points off each other to demonstrate their own extreme cleveryness What it means is that the finished paper tends to be very cautious, and perhaps understates whatever conclusions it has drawn. This is the problem for commentators and politicians - no definite answers, and extremes of conclusion get rubbed off before publication, but, it should make these final conclusions very robust. Political or business self interest gets highlighted early on. to go back to the engine analogy, the engine salesmen can only sell you a competitors engine, and they still know rather more about that funny knocking noise than the guy who thinks it'll be fine if only you install a dishwasher.

The only time I've ever felt bothered/ stupid in danger was when I caught myself standing by the tiller ( rather than in front) on the offside of the Pontycyllte Aquaduct. The stakes of getting caught there were a little higher than wet feet. Usually, I steer slumped on the roof like a malevolent tiller troll

After reading this topic, I've felt I really should de-lurk. Not so much to respond to the detail of the subjects, (though I could get into a long and frankly tedious discussion about global climate change if you want) but to post some thoughts about the frankly sometimes schitzophrenic attitude to the environment I've enountered amongst boaters. I've long ago learned not to mention too early to other boaters that I'm an ecologist by profession, and one with an interest in hydrology to boot. Similarly when I've met people working for the EA, BW or whoever, they have got a distinctly hunted look if they think they are talking to a boater. There is a pre-supposition of conflict on both sides. Fine, except most people who work in the watery environment are fascinated by boats. I mean really fascinated. Engines, sailing boats, narrowboats the lot. And as for boaters, try and get them to shut up about what they've seen from the kitchen this morning. Now, maybe dumping half a cubic metre of stale bread into the canal isn't desperately good for the environment, but the ducks round our marina aren't going to starve this winter, that's for certain. So why the hostility? Boating has an impact on the environment. So does rock climbing, so does gardening, or going out for half a dozen beers and a curry. Some species are rare and need protecting - from accidental or unintentional damage in the main, so some protection is needed. And yep, I'll stick my head up and say maybe not every canal restoration should plough ahead without some thought given to the plants and animals which will be displaced. Similarly (and no offence to the OP) but there isn't any need for the dramatics and the cloak and dagger - I've worked for conservation groups in the past and pretty much the first thing I've done in any sort of consultation is say who I am, who I work for and what I intend to use the data for. Fact is, since I moved into the ivory towers of academia, I'm obliged to do this to comply with ethics policies. A bit less suspicion, a little more openness and cooperation would go a long way to making the inland waterways a much more pleasant place to be be, not least for the odd little floating plantains and the harrassed boater/ecologists of the world.