Basingstoke Canal

[NBDensie]

We have just completed a week's cruise on the Basingstoke up to the end of navigation at Odiham Castle and back and would like to take the opportunity to encourage more boaters to visit this lovely canal. In our view it is the most attractive waterway in the south with much of interest including 29 locks, an impressive cutting, a well kept towpath, beautiful scenery, abundant wildlife, 3 swing bridges, a ruined castle, friendly and interested locals pleased to see the boats returning, good pubs, and a tunnel even if you cant go through it.

On the map it appears that the canal spends much of its time in the densely populated suburban areas of Woking and Aldershot but in reality this is completely hidden for much of the way by a thick band of mainly mature oak and beech trees.

Some practical considerations:

1) The bottom 2 flights of locks are only currently open at the weekends and the upper 2 flights on Mondays and Fridays, 9:00-15:00. There is one additional lock which is freely available. These restrictions mean that you can only stay on the canal for complete weeks (a week counts as 8 days if you chose to start on Saturday and return on Sunday). We only had time for one rushed week whereas a very leisurely 2 weeks would have been preferable.

Access to the locks must be booked at least 24 hours in advance.

2) The locks are hard work and a long handled windlass is almost essential. You would want one on the Wey anyway.

3) The canal is fairly shallow. We found a GPS very useful as we were able to adjust the power to give an optimum speed. In general if the engine was set to just over tickover we averaged around 2.5mph, anything more and the boat slowed down.

4) The mile markers on the Nicholson guide are inaccurate - if you count them up you will find there are 28 mile lengths shown for a 31 mile long canal.

5) Mooring is very limited for a narrowboat. In theory you can moor anywhere on the towpath side but in practice the shallow sides and the rampant vegetation make this impractical. There are some good official moorings with bollards and in general we found it best to plan our days around these.

6) Facilities are limited. The best place for pumpout/water/elsan/rubbish is at the Canal Centre at Mytchett. There is water at Odiham and a boatyard which has been badly hit by the closures on the canal. Again planning is needed.

7) I strongly recommend that you do cruise to the end of navigation. The area is peaceful and idyllic with crystal clear water through which you can see fish swimming around the boat. The castle and the Greywell tunnel entrance are both well worth a visit.

[Leo No2]

I am delighted you enjoyed it. A huge number of people and invested enormous amounts of time and effort in the Basingstoke and just hope that the Easter cruise which reopened the canal to through navigation again has been the catalyst to get more boats to use it. I agree that planning is very important but hopefully the restrictions wil become less onerous as time goes by.

[Ryeland]

We're off there in a couple of weeks, good to hear it's worth doing.

 

Richard

[WJM]

It is a lovely and very different canal. But you wont cover much ground in a day, and you wont be on your own. So not one for the claustrophobic.