Four days in, we’re getting pleasingly back into gear, including already a very wet (dew and fog) night’s camping alongside the canal in Evran. And finding ourselves today barrelling 120km across the base of Brittany mostly on the old railway tracks of the Voie Verte 3, repurposed as one of France’s most beautiful long distance … Read more …
With thanks again to Tiffany and Greg for hosting us in Amsterdam, their massive and special gift as Friends of the Rijksmuseum was to be able to take us both, one at a time, to see perhaps the best art exhibition I for one have ever experienced. I may not know much about art etc … Read more …
Ah well squared. The great 6000-mile bike ride from Cirencester to Hanoi didn’t come off, but there have been compensations. Since my last post, I was for quite a while in a bit of a grim state, recuperating at home from what a lovely young German neurologist – eventually consulted at the John Radcliffe Hospital … Read more …
Ah well. It was worth the planning and the effort. But in the event, I’m not going to do the Great-2012-Bike-Trip-Of-A-Lifetime to Moscow and Hanoi. So instead of images from the road to Moscow and then from Beijing to Hanoi, let me illustrate this blog entry first (left) with the lovely balloons from Meg and … Read more …
Days 9 and 10, Saturday/Sunday Oct 1-2, Rugby to Braunston, (eight hours, 19 miles, three locks) and Braunston to Stockton marina (five hours, 12 mile, three locks) (I should explain to new readers that what follows, backwards, is an account of a 10-day autumnal cruise around the Warwick Ring canal system in central England in … Read more …
Day eight. Atherstone to Rugby, 22 miles, one lock, 8¼ hours = 23 lock miles. Another full-on day. Doing the Warwick Ring in one week is doable – indeed, I know it is having done the Ring on my very first canal boat holiday with a friend and our shared four daughters in 2000. But, … Read more …
Day Seven, Kingsbury Water Park to Atherstone, 8½ hours, 15 miles, 14 locks = 29 lock miles. We didn’t realise on setting off at just after eight this morning just how important it was to get moving and then maintain that momentum. All became clear at Atherstone locks just after one o’clock, when we learned … Read more …
Day Six Wednesday Sept 28, Birmingham to Kingsbury Water Park, 46 lock miles (11 miles, 35 locks), 9 hours. From Birmingham along the Brum and Fazely canal, dropping away from the town centre along the Farmers’ Locks under Birmingham’s distinctive BT tower, we now have the canal system virtually to ourselves. It’s a hard, delightfully … Read more …
Day Five, Tuesday September 27, Waring’s Green to Birmingham Gas Street Basin. 14 miles, no locks, 5 hours. Quite how I thought we might be able to make it all the way to Gas Street in Birmingham yesterday, I’m not sure, as today we found ourselves moving surprisingly slowly through the southern suburbs of Birmingham … Read more …
Day Four, Monday Sept 26, Rowington Hill Bridge to Waring’s Green, 26 lock miles (seven miles and 19 locks) in six hours The ducks may stay slim, but that’s not very true of homo sapiens on the canals. Have you noticed just how many of our fellow canallers are becoming obese? (OK – the photo … Read more …