Liverpool Echo
Tuesday,March 2, 2004

In search of Leisure, locks and lost youth

Mike Sudley takes the pace out of life with a canal holiday

This was not the first time I embarked on a canal trip. When I was 10 or 11, two friends and I lashed a couple of large tin drums and several planks of wood together with bale string and launched ourselves into the middle of the Wendover arm of the Grand Union.

We did not get far. Our not-so-carefully constructed craft promptly sank in five feet of muddy water and we dragged ourselves back to the bank in a sorry and soggy state.

From that day on I was not much of a canal enthusiast and for the next 40 years never contemplated a holiday on our inland waterways.

But now I stood on the back end of a 58ft narrowboat weighing around 20 tons and worth tens of thousands of pounds; about to be launched into the unknown and feeling somewhat intimidated by the prospect.

I need not have worried ... and neither should you if you have never been on a canal boat trip.

Of all the good experiences that filled the following days, among the most rewarding was the realisation that the skills you need for this particular holiday are quickly acquired. Before you know it you have completely relaxed into the waterborne way of life.

We set off in our Duchess 4 craft from Black Prince Holidays' Stoke Prior base on the Worcester and Birmingham canal on what the company designates its Stourton and return route.

It is the most leisurely trip from Stoke Prior. You can cover the 84 miles there and back negotiating 82 locks in a week, motoring for five hours per day. Being novices, and on a short break, we decided to go only part of the way and turn back at Worcester.

The narrowboat was well-equipped and full tanks of fuel and water are supplied to set you on your way following lessons in starting the engine, steering, mooring and what pre-cruising checks to carry out each morning. You are given a useful booklet, too, of hints and advice.

The Birmingham to Worcester canal has delightful stretches of open water, and from your vantage point you can enjoy sights to warm a townie's heart. .; ducks and their ducklings scooting around the banks and herons taking off with a flurry of beating wings.

There are lovely rural places at which to moor for the night. Some are oddly named, though. Our first evening was spent dining and drinking at the Fir Tree Inn and Murderers' Bar. An essential part, too, of the narrowboat holiday ethic is to stand and stare while locks empty and refill, taking the time to chat to fellow travellers doing the same. I am told that no narrowboat trip should be without at least a couple of adventures with which you can endlessly bore friends and neighbours.

Our first involved negotiating the Dunhampstead Tunnel (230 yards long), which was an exciting experience for a novice. The second occurred when we ran aground. Well, more accurately, we came to rest on the canal bottom when too much water drained out of the basin between two locks in which we were waiting.

Worcester turned out to be an ideal place to turn the boat around in a manoeuvre I was not looking forward to, not having the faintest idea how to do it.

Breaking the golden rule , and reading the instructions when all else failed did little to enlighten me. I simply. could not get my head around a task that involved the equivalent of a three-point turn in a pool of water (known as a "winding hole") about the same diameter as the boat. In actual fact it is easy, so I'm told, but I didn't have to find out anyway.

We approached Worcester at a pace slow enough not only to take in the canal-side sights but allow towpath pedestrians - including mums with push- chairs and elderly ramblers - to overtake us with ease. And, as the speed limit on canals is 4mph, the joggers streaked by.

Then came a sharp right into the canal basin, a manoeuvre to line ourselves up with the tap for a refill of the water tank, and I realised we had managed to point the boat in the right direction for the return leg without even trying.

Basking in the glow of a job unintentionally well done and of having reached Worcester without sinking, we moored for the night, had a bite to eat and set out to explore the city centre.

A wander round, a couple of pints in a pleasant old pub and we headed back to the boat ready for a good night's sleep and the morning's first-leg of the return journey.

Our trip may have been modest in ambition, but in our minds it had been an achievement as well as a holiday. We'll be taking a slow boat to somewhere again one of these days.