Ashby canal dossers

[noddyboater]

If anyone fancies a few months dossing on the towpath head to the Ashby.  It appears that once through the junction it's a free mooring zone now,  with the same boats in the same places as my last visit in Easter.

The tent/boat/fire/pile of shit combo as you enter through the old stop lock is a welcoming feature,  but if you're intending dossing long term head higher up. Parking your motorcycle on the towpath is the latest perk, semi - rabid dogs loose always add interest for walkers.

Be quick to get a visitor mooring soon though,  they'll be gone for the winter. 

[Chris John]

2 hours ago, noddyboater said:

If anyone fancies a few months dossing on the towpath head to the Ashby.  It appears that once through the junction it's a free mooring zone now,  with the same boats in the same places as my last visit in Easter.

The tent/boat/fire/pile of shit combo as you enter through the old stop lock is a welcoming feature,  but if you're intending dossing long term head higher up. Parking your motorcycle on the towpath is the latest perk, semi - rabid dogs loose always add interest for walkers.

Be quick to get a visitor mooring soon though,  they'll be gone for the winter. 

Of course you’ve reported all this and any incident to CRT……what you haven’t?

[Tonka]

3 hours ago, noddyboater said:

If anyone fancies a few months dossing on the towpath head to the Ashby.  It appears that once through the junction it's a free mooring zone now,  with the same boats in the same places as my last visit in Easter.

The tent/boat/fire/pile of shit combo as you enter through the old stop lock is a welcoming feature,  but if you're intending dossing long term head higher up. Parking your motorcycle on the towpath is the latest perk, semi - rabid dogs loose always add interest for walkers.

Be quick to get a visitor mooring soon though,  they'll be gone for the winter. 

How do you know that they have not moved between Easter and now. 

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, Tonka said:

How do you know that they have not moved between Easter and now. 

 

C'mon .......................  S'obvious, he's been moored there since Easter.

[Tonka]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

C'mon .......................  S'obvious, he's been moored there since Easter.

Oh you mean @noddyboater has been moored there since Easter and that is how he knows. 

[ditchcrawler]

Funny I was up there in August and didn't notice any boats just through the stop lock.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, Chris John said:

Of course you’ve reported all this and any incident to CRT……what you haven’t?

No need, CRT spotters cover every mile of the network every two weeks, so they'll have been spotted, several times.

[Arthur Marshall]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Funny I was up there in August and didn't notice any boats just through the stop lock.

There used to be a couple of near wrecks on the offside just after the junction, last time I went through there was just one and a couple of tents in the field. As it's on the off, I assume it's a legit farm mooring.

Further up, there was a private mooring followed by visitor mooring on the offside, with good access to shops and there was certainly one boat that had been parked there a while with no-one in attendance, and was still there on my return a few days later - if it had shifted it was making a pretty good job of hiding it. The permanent boaters weren't too friendly, maybe because they were paying and he wasn't.

There seemed to be a number of liveaboards who stayed together on the Ashby and moved in convoy every so often. They said sometimes they stayed on visitor moorings for a while and then shifted out into the country for a bit. They were pretty sure that CRT was happy enough with this. It's not the busiest of canals, and everybody's got to be somewhere.

[noddyboater]

You're right Arthur,  it is a relatively quiet canal and everybody has got to be somewhere. 

What pisses me off is that the same people are often on the only moorings suitable for deeper draughted boats for months on end. 

If they chose to knock pins in the bank miles from anywhere I really wouldn't care, apart from the shit that's usually left behind.

CRT are obviously turning a blind eye for some reason,  probably prefer them up there than on the main line.

I'm not against dossing in general,  I've done it myself for months in the past. But I never hogged visitor moorings and always left the place cleaner than when I arrived. 

Edited September 20, 2022 by noddyboater

[David Mack]

Last year we got a ticket for staying at Hinckley for too long. Except the two places we were spotted were 100 yards apart, and the boat was facing the opposite direction the second time, having been to Snarestone in the meantime.