I NOW day-dream about living on a barge after the inspiration of my first canal trip.
It followed an offer for a Chron- icle reporter to sample a Black Prince Holiday.
I decided to take up the offer as a treat for myself and my girlfriend Becky. Neither of us had been on a canal trip before. And she had missed out on a pop concert so it was a way of making it up to her— although I admit that navigating an inland waterway didn't sound like rock 'n' roll!
Nevertheless, we decided it would be an adventure so we went along to the company's Chirk base near Llangollen on a damp and gloomy day. Arriving early, we enjoyed our last meal on terra firma at the Chirk Golf& Country Club whose facilities, including the course, are available to boaters.
When it was time, we went to the boathouse with feelings of excitement and some trepidation. We were greeted by an old sea dog who was friendly and showed us around our home for the next four days.
Our craft, Tina, was equipped with everything you could ever need—comfy beds, a kitchen with a sink, gas cooker and fridge plus a TV and stereo for entertainment. Perhaps most importantly of all—it had central heating and hot, running water.
Thankfully, the nice man manoeuvred the boat out of the equivalent of an NCP car park for boats and guided us a little way along our course as we headed in the direction of our destination of Ellesmere within what is dubbed Shropshire's Lake District.
Watching the boatman, I learned how to start up the diesel engine that powered the craft and about the forward and reverse throttle. The difficult bit, although he made it look easy, is using the tiller which is attached to the rudder and steers the vessel slowly left or right.
The sea dog said they had never lost a boat yet, oh except one time. I think it was this fear that we might be the second lot to sink the 'unsinkable' that caused a strange, powerful transformation in my being.'The Expert' was born.
As the man hopped off our 60ft craft—just before a particularly narrow bit—he wished us well and now we were in charge. Becky had made clear she wanted to have a go at driving (it's probably not the correct nautical term) but only when she was good and ready.
So I was temporarily made captain and I think I took my responsibilities a bit too seriously which led to her labelling me 'The Expert'.
Keeping the boat to the middle of the channel as instructed, we made reasonable progress for a craft that is only meant to go | about 4mph and soon we were waiting to enter a tunnel.
At this point, we had our first up close and personal meeting with wildlife. A group of ducks illegally boarded our vessel and began parading up and down the roof demanding we pay our toll fee—a few pieces of bread seemed to do the trick.
The tunnel was a tricky number because we had to work out whether anything was coming the other way as it was only wide enough for one way traffic. We could see the proverbial light at the end of it, but was it natural light or another boat's headlight coming towards us? The lengthy debate as to what to do solved the issue as the boat exited just a couple of minutes later.
After passing through the tunnel we travelled over the smaller of two aqueducts on our route—which offer breathtaking views of the countryside—and everything was going swimmingly. It was not long before we had found a suitable mooring spot for the night.
I really enjoyed the evenings. There was a real sense of achievement. You felt as though you had done a moderate amount of exercise, reached your destination and your complexion was refreshed from being out in the open air. Then it was time to cook a meal together and crack open the bottle of wine.
Next morning it was a case of having a leisurely breakfast, enjoying a hot shower and there was the small task of pressing a button to pump out bilge water.
Then we were off again. Negotiating the craft around a tight bend, with boats tethered on one side, was tricky and I think I gently clipped one of them but with no real harm done. A helpful fellow boater reckoned we might have weed caught on the propeller judging by the wake and advised us how to shift it.
Despite my fears, mastering the locks was not a problem. I had studied all the guides and carried out a recce beforehand watching others get through them, but they are really not that difficult.
Again a helpful fellow boater, who looked like a wine expert on ITVl's 'This Morning' show, helped us haul the boat into position using the ropes.
The-countryside along the route was beautiful and I'm sure surveying the green fields and the wildlife at a snail's pace can be a really relaxing experience.
I think that we would have found it more restful once we'd mastered the navigation.
A return trip with more time and a bigger crew would have helped us. Sitting back in a pub in Llangollen, we started to laugh about what had indeed turned out to be an adventure | Black Prince Holidays is a privately-owned company with bases at Chirk, Stoke-on-Trent, Stoke Prior, Adon Bridge and Falkirk in Scotland.
It has a policy of reinvesting in boats and designs. The company claims more than 75% of its boats will be a year old or less for the 2004 season and none of the remainder more than four years old.
The company is running boats from the spectacular location or the Millennium Wheel at Falkirk—a rotating boat lift that connects two halves of the Scottish lowland waterways.
Boat hire prices vary according to the month and the type of boat taken. They range from £550 per week in March for a two- to four-berth boat, up to £1,550 per week in August for an eight- to ten-berth barge. |
