Seeking advice in planning our first narrowboat /canal trip

[smwhitaker]

4 hours ago, OldGoat said:

Yes, yes - go through Brum on a boat!.

Yes, there are grotty areas but with a bit of planning you can avoid them. In the centre there are excellent moorings and relatively quiet at night. 

• A choice of restaurants
• Art gallery
• Georgian churches (nice architecture in a pleasant square)
• The pen museum
• The mint
• The Back to backs - but see later
• Jewellery quarter
• The town hall with a magnificent organ

All within a reasonable walking distance.

At Dudley - a half day's cruise along the Birmingham main line is the Black Country Living museum https://www.bclm.co.uk  (similar in style to Colonial Williamsburg on your side of the Pond) - which celebrates the local history and development. Not a static exhibition but each 'exhibit' is staffed with knowledgeable folks that bring the details to life.

We like the fact that you can moor overnight next to the museum and enter by the back entrance - right by the pub. If you don't choose a route for the rest of the holiday, you can take the tunnel trip through the old mine workings.

Hire from (say) Alvechurch you could build a ring round the Birmingham area which gives you a fair amount of  countryside - passing a part of the 4 counties which was your initial idea.

I made this post because over the weekend there was a re-run of a BBC programme about 19th century bread making which uses the BCLM bakery - thus I thought "that might be of interest to your visit"  

 

 

This is a wealth of information! Thank you, OldGoat!  Mooring in such central proximity to so many sights sounds very appealing.  Birmingham (Brum!) is in one of my guidebooks so I will look at the areas and sights you have mentioned.  Thank you again.

[smwhitaker]

3 hours ago, hawkesmith said:

The Caldon is lovely and I don't have many miss givings about Stoke (but am happier when we have left it behind.) If you hired from Ellesmere then the Montgomery canal is only a couple of hours away and is even more peaceful than the Caldon. My vote would be the Llangollen and Shropshire union canals as I mentioned  in the previous post. There is a steady stream of  nice pubs and locks without ever getting strained. Chester is a lovely city and a safe one to overnight in. You can jump the train from Chester straight to Liverpool if that takes your fancy.

 

Thank you, hawkesmith, for your suggestions.  Chester looks lovely and we are looking for a "steady stream of nice pubs."  I will add this route to my growing list of options.

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

When we hired boats we hired from Shire Cruisers, "did" The Rochdale Canal from Sowerby Bridge to Summit on three separate occasions, Also the Calder and Hebble.

 

Peter Stevens and crew were a pleasure to deal with. The boats were always immaculately turned out and reliable. One the one occasion we had boat trouble an engineer was out within the hour of our phone call to fix the problem. All it was we had hit an underwater obstruction and the rudder had come out of its skeg cup.

 

The reason we don't hire any more from them? We bought our own boat.

Thank you for the Shire endorsement, Ray T.  Good to hear from those with personal experiences when considering hire companies.  I bet the lure of having your own boat is a strong one!  

[smwhitaker]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

The Llangollen does have the fantastic aqueduct but is otherwise rather boring as far as scenery and towns/pubs are concerned, and it's *very* busy in the summer -- the only canal in all our years boating where we've had to queue for long periods (hours!) at locks. The Llangollen has about 8000 boat movements through eachlock per year (right near the top of the CART list) compared to about 2000 for the L&L (and about 300 for the HNC and Rochdale)...

 

P.S. In case you haven't worked it out, different people have different views about what the "best" canals are... ?

Thank you, IanD.  A wonderful, though sometimes a bit overwhelming, part of researching these canals and this forum is the wide variety of choices in where to go and what to see.  So much to choose from when you only have a week or so to plan....cities, countryside, castles, pubs, north, south, etc...and I haven't even included the possibility of Scotland!

[hider]

4 minutes ago, smwhitaker said:

 possibility of Scotland!

Beware!!! Midges, and a severe lack of canals.

[smwhitaker]

3 minutes ago, hider said:

Beware!!! Midges, and a severe lack of canals.

What is a Midge?
One of these?

Edited May 28, 2019 by smwhitaker

[IanD]

19 minutes ago, smwhitaker said:

What is a Midge?
One of these?

The missing words are "vicious little biting b*stards"...

[hider]

18 minutes ago, smwhitaker said:

What is a Midge?
One of these?

#1, but not one, millions of them, flesh eating mini mosquitoes. Not malarial but a total pain, all over.

[OldGoat]

16 minutes ago, smwhitaker said:

What is a Midge?
One of these?

A nasty biting insect that inhabits much of Easatern Canada north of highway 404  (or so it did when I was last there....)

 

The Scottish canals are beutiful, but -I submit - more suitable / enjoyable in 'proper boats' ....

To far north for me and I haven't got my family plaid, only a tie...

[smwhitaker]

Thank you for taking a canal option OFF of the table for consideration!