john6767

That is because to are going roughly west

By car!

I would suggest you look at a longer boat for 2 couples, get one with 2 fixed berths if you can. In the past before we had our own boat we did the trip to LLangollen and back from Anglo Welsh at Bunbury in a hire boat week (eg 6 1/2 days). If you had 10 days (ie 9 1/2) you can make it a bit more leisurely, and could then spend 2 nights (the max allowed) in LLangollen basin. Usually with hire boats you will pick up early to mid afternoon, but always get there earlier than they say as usually the local team what you off asap. You drop of at 9:00-9:30 am on the last day. I don't think it will be too busy at Easter. All the boats will have central heating so you should not be unduly cold, although you will probably get wet (it is Wales).

From what I remember when we were looking, Brinklow Marina as a BT line to each mooring it you want to have it connected.

I was not meaning to belittle the issues. There is no excuse for them not being straight with the people who put their faith in them. I hope you manage to work out a solution.

Whilst they do seem OTT in their claims for the current state of the marina, I would have thought that the mooring terms (to which you agreed) would have clauses that state that there is no guarantee that any of the services are available at a point in time, and that you are not due any compensation in that case. They would be crazy it that were not the case. Perhaps that is challengeable given they have never been available. For what it is worth, in my opinion with the approach that they seem to be taking I would assume that they are loosing a lot of good will, and if it were me running it and I needed the income to finish the works, I think I would be offering a discount on next years mooring. That way you get the income you need (or already have) now, and hook people in for next year when presumable you will still have spare capacity. In the meantime there is never an excuse for not being helpful and sympathetic.

Personally I would say keep in simple to go up the Aston flight. If you start early you should be able to make the city centre in one hop from the D&D. You can make it a bit easier by mooring a couple of locks above the D&D and walking down to the pub.

Same here, we went past weekend before last, and I was surprised that there were no pontoons. It looked a real mess, with loads of boats all breasted up around the bank, and what looks like nothing but mud everywhere. The facilities building seemed to consist of a "B&Q" type garden marque.

There is Swallow Cruisers at Hockley Heath, not a dry dock but they do have boats craned out in their yard, 01564 783442

http://www.canalworl...showtopic=41385

I think there are just 2 types of Beta keys, one all metal and one with a plastic bit where you turn it. You can get them from Beta, but they are not cheap, £15 for 2 if I remember correctly. I did get one cut in a key shop when I was looking but the nearest blank was not quite the same but it works if you wiggle it, so I decided to get the real thing. You can look at the Beta Illustrated Parts List and match up yours. If you ring Beta they will probalby want the WOK number of the engine.

To get to Llangollen and back in the 6 1/2 days you will have sounds hard work at this time of year, you would need to be travelling for most of the daylight hours. The Llangollen is great, but unless you are ok with just doing part of it and not getting to the big aqueduct, I think an alternative plan is in order.

Yep, I agree there always seems to be one early boat. We had one before 7 on Sunday morning just outside Braunston. I was already up though ready to watch the rugby.

I would say go the Stratford route. As you say less locks, and you don't retrace your steps back down Farmers Bridge. Also the locks that you do are in the country at Lapworth and are in a very nice setting. As to overnight stops, as there are no locks on the Northern Stratford until Lapworth you can easily go all the way to the top of Lapworth in one day from central Birmingham even at this time of year. If you go down the top 2 locks there is a nice mooring spot. If you want to stop sooner, I would personally say Shirley lift bridge is the first stopping point, and then basically anywhere you want past that. From the top of Lapworth you then take a day to the top of Hatton where there are good moorings near the winding hole.

So sounds like you are not getting DNS. try ping 212.67.210.22, the IP address of www.jim-shead.com That should work and proves routing is ok. Now not certain, but the DNS entry for www.jim-shead.com loosk like a dynamic hosting arrangement to me (reverse DNS look up give the host name as supanames-22.supanames.co.uk), so it could be your isp's DNS is messing up.

try opening up a command prompt and typing ping www.jim-shead.com If you get a reply you can see the host, so the problem is likely to be browser related. If you get no reply then try tracert www.jim-shead.com and see where it stops, probably your isp if it does not get to webfusion.com

OK for me in Chrome Link

Crikey Max, that is one heck of a (hire boat) week in October

Whilst at bit off topic as the OP has asked specifically about the Nene, how does this really work. When we were on the Thames at the end of August the lock keeper where we bought our license said about mooring, "you can moor anywhere on either side as long as it is not obviously someones garden or there are not any no mooring signs". What is that makes the Thames different in this respect? This means the Thames (at least above Oxford) has plentiful moorings, which was a concern of mine based on previous comments on here about having to find a mooring by mid afte noon as there were in short supply.

Very fair comment I think, and I would agree with that. But the thread title and OP is referring to "fake" or fictional" names, and the impact of using those. I think that is a very different matter.

Don't see anything wrong with it, it is just people having a bit of fun. This is just one of the many things that make the canals interesting. Chill out!

Exactly! In one case there was one sitting on the roof, no rope or chain. In another case there was one on one of those carriers behind the tiller, again no rope or chain. But most did not have (a visible) one.