Warwickshire Ring Itinerary

[Stedman II]

We very much prefer to cruise rather than moor up outside pubs and have done the Warwickshire ring in a week more than once. In fact we've done the ring and the entire Ashby in a week without feeling too stressed.

 

 

Ditto. We did it from Stoke Golding, and went anticlockwise. We started one day at the top of Hatton, and met a private boat in the lock . I think they were a bit worried about sharing with a hire boat. My two daughters set off to set the next lock - we didn't see them again until the bottom, and every lock was ready for the boats. By the second lock down, the private boat worked out we'd done this sort of thing before. By the end of the day we'd done 42 wide locks!

 

We would take it more leisurely now, but when you've only got a week, and you've spent your hard-earned cash to go boating, that's what we did.

[Gazza Cliff]

Brilliant, never heard that phrase before. It is most certainly going in my vocabulary!

You're welcome!

Your plan sounds very reasonable to me. When hiring we had no interest in anything but boating,

The hours of daylight are long in July. I think you are right to do as many locks as possible at the start. On Atherstone, you are much more likely to get up the locks without long queues if you do them in the evening.

 

Thanks for the advice - we will be getting to Atherstone at the end of Tuesday so if it's not too busy then we'll push on to the top depending on what time we hit the bottom.

Ditto. We did it from Stoke Golding, and went anticlockwise. We started one day at the top of Hatton, and met a private boat in the lock . I think they were a bit worried about sharing with a hire boat. My two daughters set off to set the next lock - we didn't see them again until the bottom, and every lock was ready for the boats. By the second lock down, the private boat worked out we'd done this sort of thing before. By the end of the day we'd done 42 wide locks!

 

We would take it more leisurely now, but when you've only got a week, and you've spent your hard-earned cash to go boating, that's what we did.

I hope we're as lucky as you then if we do meet someone to lock share.

We do know that it's going to be busy, but it is our annual 'family gathering' and it's what we all love so the long days and exercise is not a problem - and the G&T's and beer etc at the end of the day soon make you forget!!!

[Gazza Cliff]

We very much prefer to cruise rather than moor up outside pubs and have done the Warwickshire ring in a week more than once. In fact we've done the ring and the entire Ashby in a week without feeling too stressed.

 

If you enjoy cruising then you should be fine.

 

Enjoy it.

 

Sue

Thanks for the advice, we know it's doable with respect to distances and numbers of locks etc in a week - we've done the equivilant before - but when it's a route that you've not done before and it's going to be in July so potentially busy - if you don't use the tools available to plan - including this great forum - then quite frankly you're asking for trouble!

Thanks again

[p6rob]

We very much prefer to cruise rather than moor up outside pubs and have done the Warwickshire ring in a week more than once. In fact we've done the ring and the entire Ashby in a week without feeling too stressed.

 

If you enjoy cruising then you should be fine.

 

Enjoy it.

 

Sue

In contrast, the first time I did the Warwickshire ring it took 8 months, the second 5 and I did feel stressed for some of the journey.

[___]

We very much prefer to cruise rather than moor up outside pubs

Thankfully they aren't mutually exclusive activities. Combining the two to the full is the fun part of planning a trip for me.

 

JP

[Gazza Cliff]

Saturday 16th July.

We managed to pick the boat (Louise) up at Napton early which was a bonus, however after being directed by the boatyard staff to turn left out of the Marina we immediately realised that they had sent us in the wrong direction - moral of the story? Ensure we have the map out and are clear in our own minds which way to travel!!

After managing to wind a couple of bridges down we then steamed gently back past the Marina dead on our advised 13:30 departure - any advantage initially gained was now lost!

We made good progress once on track and decided that we wouldn't stop at our planned stop of Long Itchington when we arrived, but would in fact push on and try to reach Warwick, this proved to be a bit too ambitious and we only got as far Leamington Spa - it wasn't particularly nice here but with no plans to go ashore it didn't really matter.

 

Sunday 17th

A really busy morning in which we managed to navigate up the Hatton Locks in a shade over three hours in company with another boat, was followed by a couple of pints at Tom o the Woods pub at Turners Green.

In the afternoon we pushed on through Kingswood Junction, which is where we initially planned on stopping, up Knowle Locks - where we also watered up - and on to Catherine de Barnes where we moored up opposite the Boat Inn and sampled some more refreshment!

 

Monday 18th

Not a particularly great start to the day as we managed to pick up a particularly heavy hessian sack and a few other unidentifiable items round the prop which literally ground the engine to a halt just above Camp Hill locks. 25 mins of hacking away at it with a knife and we were good to go again, however this wasn't to be our day because just after descending the first lock, on our approach to the second the throttle cable snapped!! With no astern capability we had quite a heavy landing at lock 2, thankfully not into the gate!! After calling the boatyard for assistance we got through the rest of Camp Hill locks and around the corner at Bordesley Junction using a combination of tick over and roping and then had a delay of 2 1/2 hours whilst the boatyard mechanic made his way from Napton into Brum and replaced the cable.

Once fully operational again Garrison Locks and Salford Junction were navigated and we moored up adjacent to the Hare and Hounds at Minworth, as planned, to rendezvous with friends for the evening.

 

Tuesday 19th

An early departure from Minworth meant we were down through the Curdworth flight and onto the Coventry Canal by mid morning, however the Glascote locks proved to be a choke point as we were 5th in the queue on arrival and it took 1 1/2 hours to get through - not pleasant in the heatwave, however I shan't complain too loudly as we wait ages for decent weather and it doesn't last long!! We were rewarded for enduring the heat with a couple of pints at the Gate Inn - mooring up on a friendly couples boat, who it turned out are from a town only a few miles from us in South Devon - a small world indeed!

In the afternoon we pushed on through Polesworth and started up Atherstone Locks where we moored between Locks 5 & 6 initially before having to move up one more to the watering point when the water ran out mid shower! A couple of beers followed at the Kings Head, which quite bizarrely stopped serving and shut its doors around 21:30!

 

Wednesday 20th

A leisurely start to the day going up through the last 4 locks into Atherstone and then onwards to Nuneaton for a brief stop for provisions and then onwards to Hawkesbury Junction - this was not without incident as for the second time of the voyage the prop stopped spinning and the engine died due to picking up debris from the canal bottom - this time another knife hacking session revealed what appeared to be a quilt cover and also a considerable length of fishing line.

Hawkesbury Junction was achieved by 14:30 and here we called it day, deciding that the jaunt down to Coventry wasn't worth the hassle if we found that there was no decent overnight mooring and we had to trek back again. A couple of beers in the Greyhound in the afternoon was followed by a repeat visit in the evening to meet with friends and dine - highly recommended (especially the Belly Pork!!!).

 

Thursday 21st

A bit of a lie in was achievable this morning, and the only thing that occurred before 9 o'clock was a quick hop to the watering point to top the tank off. The 'U' turn at Hawkesbury went without incident and we were onto the Oxford Canal, with no locks to navigate it was a nice leisurely steam down to Newbold upon Avon and we were moored up just along from the Barley Mow a shade after 13:00 where we stopped for the day.

Our intention is to get to Braunston tomorrow - probably early to mid afternoon and then do the last few miles along to Napton early on Saturday before handing the boat back at 09:00.

 

Overall the first couple of days were quite busy, which we expected, but it has been been a breeze for the last couple of days. Our route hasn't really been very taxing and we could easily have incorporated going right into Gas Street had we not decided prior to setting off where we were going to meet people, additionally we could have gone into Coventry too but with two young children in our group it was decided to get them off as much as we could to allow them some exercise - it just so happens a lot of the pubs have beer gardens with play parks so we've been able to imbibe in a couple of pints whilst watching them get tired!

One thing we've been surprised about is the lack of traffic on the canals in general, however this could have been due to our choice of route, and, the fact that the schools don't break up until this week could have an impact on anyone else aiming to complete the 'Ring' in the near future.

 

I hope this brief review has been helpful and if it should be in another area of the forum then please feel free to copy and paste it where it should be - or let me know and I'll do it.

 

Cheers,

 

Gary