Narrowboat trip
Aug. 28th, 2024 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleySince last posting I've been on a narrowboat trip to the UK. This is my first ever international outing.
Things went incredibly smoothly. I'm told that I lucked out on pretty much everything especially at customs and security, but it does help my confidence.
I took my Yamaha motorcycle to the airport, which means free unlimited time parking very near the terminal. I was through security in about 7 minutes. I showed them my driver's license. Nobody looked at my physical passport on the departure, though I did scan it into the Delta app and it was linked to my boarding pass (which, again, nobody looked at). As I was getting on the plane they used a facial recognition thingie, that was it.
Arrival was very smooth. The automated passport machine didn't like my passport so I was diverted to a manual lane. Several of the machines seemed to be wonky, causing rescans or rejects on several people in front of me. In any case the manual lane took only 2 or 3 minutes.
I immediately hit an ATM to get out some cash to pay the balance on the boat and some walking around money, and I got a UK SIM. I really didn't need the extra 20GB I paid 10 extra pounds for, something to remember in the future. Then lots of walking at Heathrow to get to the Central Bus Terminal, then bought a ticket to Oxford/Headington Shops. It turns out I could have saved a few bucks buying the ticket on my phone instead of at the desk. I did buy on my phone for the return trip.
Once arrived in Oxford, after a moment of panic where I couldn't find my phone (it was just in a fold in my jacket), I found Dobsons' house, got the tour and settled in.
I was honestly beyond exhausted, but the weather wasn't bad and the next day was forecast to be 90*F or higher, so Perdy and I went out to do a walking tour of Oxford. I saw a ton of very beautiful and old buildings, and Perdy is a wealth of historical knowledge (as was Dermot, as I learned in subsequent days).
Dermot arrived on Monday. I pretty much stayed in and tried to recover from the time difference and the generalized headache I had from the flight.
One thing I didn't talk about until the end, we were all sharing a cough and a bit of a fever from about Wednesday/Thursday on.
===============================
Tuesday 8/13: Lower Heyford to Aynho Wharf:
On Tuesday Kevin and Tegan arrived on a bus (off the train I believe) and Dermot and I went to collect them as they had significant luggage. The large costuming suitcase lived at their house during the boat trip.
Then later we went to the boat hire place in Lower Heyford, got everyone aboard (there is a train station a few hundred feet away by which most of the rest arrived). We got an abbreviated intro since many of the crew had already been narrowboating before.
We soon were motoring north. The first lock north of Lower Heyford is a pretty normal lock, but the next one is the Somerton Deep Lock, which is something like a 12 foot lift. It was a short day and we moored up at Aynho Wharf.
At our first mooring, Barry missed his footing (the shore was very spongy and had holes, but looked solid, so no blame here. I was closest and tried to stablize him, and got his glasses off and safely on the shore. Unfortunately Jerry also went in as well during the struggle. Eventually everyone got out and the two dunk-ees had a shower.
We had dinner at the Great Western Arms in Aynho, where Kevin asked for a draft "to go" and was given one in a glass, which he now treasures.
===============================
Wednesday 8/14: Aynho Wharf to Banbury then on to Cropredy
We moored for lunch at Banbury, where everyone had Nando's, which was an experiment all around. Basically acceptable fast food. There were quite a few restaurants right on the canal, and across a foot bridge was Castle Quay, a reasonably large mall, and through that downtown Banbury.
After lunch and some time for shopping, we continued on to Cropredy where we had dinner at the Brasenose Arms. We ate on the patio, and "enjoyed" quite a bit of time sitting very near a very loud man. Barry wasn't feeling well and stayed on the boat.
===============================
Thursday 8/15: Cropredy to mooring near Puddleduck Cafe
Barry was feeling quite poorly this morning. We had to determine if he could carry on since beyond this point we would have a tough time getting a taxi for him to return to someplace with better care. In the end he decided he could soldier on and indeed he did improve day by day from this point on.
It was another day of motoring along.
Just north of Cropredy is a series of 3 locks, and about a mile later a flight of 5 locks. The last of these is #17, the Claydon Top Lock, which takes us to the "summit." This means we locked up as far as this canal goes, either side of the summit you're locking down.
The water is shallow since it only flows out from here, and we heard from another boater that this summit hasn't been dredged in 30 years, and I can believe it. We hit silt quite a few times. This is a contour canal so it's extremely bendy at the summit, and on several bends the bottom of the boat hit silt and just stopped turning, insisting on going straight forward. The only solution then is to reverse hard to stop, then rudder hard over and run the engine hard to try to pivot the boat in place.
We also managed to run aground once or twice. On this leg, we were able to push off with the pole and get free.
We stopped for lunch around 2:30 at The Wharf Inn.
After lunch, we continued on 4 or 5 miles and moored up in a spot near the Puddleduck Cafe. Dinner was in the boat. It got pretty rainy during this bit, but as I didn't want to moor in the middle of nowhere, I put on a rain jacket and piloted through it.
=========================
Friday 8/16: Puddleduck Cafe to Napton on the Hill and back to Fenny Wharf
On Friday we motored north for just a few miles, hitting some locks taking us off the summit just before going through Napton on the Hill.
We went past Napton a bit to the winding point where we turned around, then returning to Napton to moor up for lunch. We were on a slow schedule to get back by Tuesday so this was an exploring day.
Jerry, Kevin, Tegan and I went on a bit of a walk to get to the top of the hill where they say seven counties can be seen. It was a lengthy uphill walk, with a very nice view. We stopped at the Cidery on the way back, then backtracked and picked up some groceries at the post office.
The others had gone to The Folly near the canal for a meal and a round, the hill walkers joined them for our dinner as well.
After dinner we headed south again to Fenny Wharf, which means we locked back up to the summit again. We were quite late getting in, mooring up south of the marina at around 8:28 and getting scolded by a grouchypants for being on the move after 8. We later heard that the canal trust volunteers know all about Mr Grouchypants and advised us to ignore the old coot.
========================
Saturday 8/17: Fenny Wharf to Banbury
Saturday morning we got going sometime around 7:40.
One interesting bit of the canal in the summit is the "tunnel" (with quotation marks). It's a long, straight, very narrow bit, I think it used to be a tunnel but it's been dug out into a cut since then. There are long sections of it where it's only one boat wide. Luckily we did not meet any other boats on it in either direction.
We moored up in Banbury near Castle Quay and all set out for exploring on our own. Barry, Jo and I went right over for pizza. Dermot and Perdy also had pizza, at a different shop a few stores down.
Our first mooring at Banbury had a ground wasp next right at the boat. Unfortunately when moving it to another point, Dermot fell and bruised some ribs.
We spent the night moored in Banbury.
===========================
Sunday 8/18: Banbury to Aynho Wharf
Sunday morning, Dermot and I went in to hit Superdrug and another shop or two, and discovered a very nice Sunday market going on in town. I bought a Greek sausage breakfast, and Dermot picked up a bag of jelly donuts for everyone. We split up and went our ways.
When I returned to the mooring point, the boat had moved on. I walked up to the water point where the rest of the crew had moved to top up the tank.
After that, it was a slow motoring along to Aynho Wharf.
=============================
Monday 8/19: Aynho Wharf to Lower Heyford
We left getting going fairly late since we had only a very short distance to cover.
Jo took us several miles including through the Somerton deep lock. There we found a boat already in the lock, with the lower gate open. It turned out to be an older couple who had been stuck in the lock all night as they were unable to close the lower gate. We got them sorted, they locked up and we were then able to go down.
We moored up in Lower Heyford just a few hundred yards from the boat hire place around 1:45. Dermot was suffering badly from his bruised ribs, with the COVID that we all had he was coughing which hurt his ribs, and also he does not sleep well with confined air, and he had not slept at all for two nights. He walked down to the boat hire place, only a 10 minute walk, and got his car and drove home to get some proper sleep.
At about 4:45 the rest of us wandered into the village to find dinner. We went to The Bell and found there was no food Mondays and Tuesdays, which is fairly common. We stayed for a round or two, then retreated to the street where we could borrow their wifi and find a delivery. Eventually we found that Thai To Go was one of the few options, and ordered up.
We originally asked them to deliver to the canal bridge but as there's no cell signal there, I returned to the street outside The Bell and texted that maybe they should deliver there so the card machine would work. They agreed.
While waiting, Morris dancers began arriving and going into the pub. Later they came out and had a practice. I got to watch them do two pieces before the food arrived. I nearly ran to the boat to let them know what was going on but I feared missing the food.
The food came, I took it back to the boat and we had a proper meal on the boat, the first one (mostly) together of the trip, really.
We did most of the cleaning and we got most of our stuff packed up.
=========================
Tuesday 8/20
Tuesday morning we just went about 1/4 mile down the cut to the boat hire place, cleared our stuff out and turned the boat back in. I think the total fuel bill was something like 74 litres of diesel.
Dermot met us there with just Jerry and Gehms' spare luggage that had been stored in the car. Jerry, Jo and Barry took the train to London I think, and Kevin and Tegan to Oxford. Dermot, Perdy and I took the car to Oxford.
Later on Monday Kevin and Tegan turned up at the house to pick up the costuming bag and repack some stuff.
Dermot did a COVID test and was very much positive. The whole lot of us were coughing the whole time and I was running out of energy mid afternoon most days. There's no way that anyone on such a boat won't wind up with anything anyone else has.
=========================
On Wednesday my plan had originally been to tour Bletchley Park with Dermot. However he was not up to the drive and there is effectively no mass transit to there, so I re-thought to go to London to visit Lightroom and their Apollo show, and swing by Novelty Automation, Tim Hunkin's arcade.
However, having had a positive COVID test on Tuesday, I decided that I should not be unnecessarily carrying my germs all over and took Wednesday as a rest day. I did pick up the surprise I'd planned for Jenn, which required several walks to the hardware store.
Thursday was an early morning walk to the bus stop at Headington Shops, to Heathrow and home. Lots of sitting on busses, gates and planes.
=========================
General notes:
For navigation, we did have the official book, but I used the open canal map app, which I found very useful, especially since I had it on me always even when walking between locks or at the pub when we talked about what to do the next day.
I traveled with just one carry-on and a sling bag, which was more than enough - I didn't even wear all the clothes I had between laundry days, and I didn't really need all of the pared-back tech I brought either.
I used our 10 year old Canon G15 camera. While it did the job, it's definitely feeling its age. I'm tossed up about replacing it. It does pretty well. A new camera would certainly improve photos and especially video, but OTOH the Sony RX100 VII that I have my eye on is something like $1300. We'll see if I can save up that much.
I used my phone to record GPX tracks, which is OK but drains the battery and isn't totally stable. I have a dedicated GPS logger on the way for future trips. Trying to figure out where we were and when has been surprisingly difficult. I think some journalling or at least note taking during the trip is definitely a good idea.
More photos here.
Things went incredibly smoothly. I'm told that I lucked out on pretty much everything especially at customs and security, but it does help my confidence.
I took my Yamaha motorcycle to the airport, which means free unlimited time parking very near the terminal. I was through security in about 7 minutes. I showed them my driver's license. Nobody looked at my physical passport on the departure, though I did scan it into the Delta app and it was linked to my boarding pass (which, again, nobody looked at). As I was getting on the plane they used a facial recognition thingie, that was it.
Arrival was very smooth. The automated passport machine didn't like my passport so I was diverted to a manual lane. Several of the machines seemed to be wonky, causing rescans or rejects on several people in front of me. In any case the manual lane took only 2 or 3 minutes.
I immediately hit an ATM to get out some cash to pay the balance on the boat and some walking around money, and I got a UK SIM. I really didn't need the extra 20GB I paid 10 extra pounds for, something to remember in the future. Then lots of walking at Heathrow to get to the Central Bus Terminal, then bought a ticket to Oxford/Headington Shops. It turns out I could have saved a few bucks buying the ticket on my phone instead of at the desk. I did buy on my phone for the return trip.
Once arrived in Oxford, after a moment of panic where I couldn't find my phone (it was just in a fold in my jacket), I found Dobsons' house, got the tour and settled in.
I was honestly beyond exhausted, but the weather wasn't bad and the next day was forecast to be 90*F or higher, so Perdy and I went out to do a walking tour of Oxford. I saw a ton of very beautiful and old buildings, and Perdy is a wealth of historical knowledge (as was Dermot, as I learned in subsequent days).
Dermot arrived on Monday. I pretty much stayed in and tried to recover from the time difference and the generalized headache I had from the flight.
One thing I didn't talk about until the end, we were all sharing a cough and a bit of a fever from about Wednesday/Thursday on.
===============================
Tuesday 8/13: Lower Heyford to Aynho Wharf:
On Tuesday Kevin and Tegan arrived on a bus (off the train I believe) and Dermot and I went to collect them as they had significant luggage. The large costuming suitcase lived at their house during the boat trip.
Then later we went to the boat hire place in Lower Heyford, got everyone aboard (there is a train station a few hundred feet away by which most of the rest arrived). We got an abbreviated intro since many of the crew had already been narrowboating before.
We soon were motoring north. The first lock north of Lower Heyford is a pretty normal lock, but the next one is the Somerton Deep Lock, which is something like a 12 foot lift. It was a short day and we moored up at Aynho Wharf.
At our first mooring, Barry missed his footing (the shore was very spongy and had holes, but looked solid, so no blame here. I was closest and tried to stablize him, and got his glasses off and safely on the shore. Unfortunately Jerry also went in as well during the struggle. Eventually everyone got out and the two dunk-ees had a shower.
We had dinner at the Great Western Arms in Aynho, where Kevin asked for a draft "to go" and was given one in a glass, which he now treasures.
===============================
Wednesday 8/14: Aynho Wharf to Banbury then on to Cropredy
We moored for lunch at Banbury, where everyone had Nando's, which was an experiment all around. Basically acceptable fast food. There were quite a few restaurants right on the canal, and across a foot bridge was Castle Quay, a reasonably large mall, and through that downtown Banbury.
After lunch and some time for shopping, we continued on to Cropredy where we had dinner at the Brasenose Arms. We ate on the patio, and "enjoyed" quite a bit of time sitting very near a very loud man. Barry wasn't feeling well and stayed on the boat.
===============================
Thursday 8/15: Cropredy to mooring near Puddleduck Cafe
Barry was feeling quite poorly this morning. We had to determine if he could carry on since beyond this point we would have a tough time getting a taxi for him to return to someplace with better care. In the end he decided he could soldier on and indeed he did improve day by day from this point on.
It was another day of motoring along.
Just north of Cropredy is a series of 3 locks, and about a mile later a flight of 5 locks. The last of these is #17, the Claydon Top Lock, which takes us to the "summit." This means we locked up as far as this canal goes, either side of the summit you're locking down.
The water is shallow since it only flows out from here, and we heard from another boater that this summit hasn't been dredged in 30 years, and I can believe it. We hit silt quite a few times. This is a contour canal so it's extremely bendy at the summit, and on several bends the bottom of the boat hit silt and just stopped turning, insisting on going straight forward. The only solution then is to reverse hard to stop, then rudder hard over and run the engine hard to try to pivot the boat in place.
We also managed to run aground once or twice. On this leg, we were able to push off with the pole and get free.
We stopped for lunch around 2:30 at The Wharf Inn.
After lunch, we continued on 4 or 5 miles and moored up in a spot near the Puddleduck Cafe. Dinner was in the boat. It got pretty rainy during this bit, but as I didn't want to moor in the middle of nowhere, I put on a rain jacket and piloted through it.
=========================
Friday 8/16: Puddleduck Cafe to Napton on the Hill and back to Fenny Wharf
On Friday we motored north for just a few miles, hitting some locks taking us off the summit just before going through Napton on the Hill.
We went past Napton a bit to the winding point where we turned around, then returning to Napton to moor up for lunch. We were on a slow schedule to get back by Tuesday so this was an exploring day.
Jerry, Kevin, Tegan and I went on a bit of a walk to get to the top of the hill where they say seven counties can be seen. It was a lengthy uphill walk, with a very nice view. We stopped at the Cidery on the way back, then backtracked and picked up some groceries at the post office.
The others had gone to The Folly near the canal for a meal and a round, the hill walkers joined them for our dinner as well.
After dinner we headed south again to Fenny Wharf, which means we locked back up to the summit again. We were quite late getting in, mooring up south of the marina at around 8:28 and getting scolded by a grouchypants for being on the move after 8. We later heard that the canal trust volunteers know all about Mr Grouchypants and advised us to ignore the old coot.
========================
Saturday 8/17: Fenny Wharf to Banbury
Saturday morning we got going sometime around 7:40.
One interesting bit of the canal in the summit is the "tunnel" (with quotation marks). It's a long, straight, very narrow bit, I think it used to be a tunnel but it's been dug out into a cut since then. There are long sections of it where it's only one boat wide. Luckily we did not meet any other boats on it in either direction.
We moored up in Banbury near Castle Quay and all set out for exploring on our own. Barry, Jo and I went right over for pizza. Dermot and Perdy also had pizza, at a different shop a few stores down.
Our first mooring at Banbury had a ground wasp next right at the boat. Unfortunately when moving it to another point, Dermot fell and bruised some ribs.
We spent the night moored in Banbury.
===========================
Sunday 8/18: Banbury to Aynho Wharf
Sunday morning, Dermot and I went in to hit Superdrug and another shop or two, and discovered a very nice Sunday market going on in town. I bought a Greek sausage breakfast, and Dermot picked up a bag of jelly donuts for everyone. We split up and went our ways.
When I returned to the mooring point, the boat had moved on. I walked up to the water point where the rest of the crew had moved to top up the tank.
After that, it was a slow motoring along to Aynho Wharf.
=============================
Monday 8/19: Aynho Wharf to Lower Heyford
We left getting going fairly late since we had only a very short distance to cover.
Jo took us several miles including through the Somerton deep lock. There we found a boat already in the lock, with the lower gate open. It turned out to be an older couple who had been stuck in the lock all night as they were unable to close the lower gate. We got them sorted, they locked up and we were then able to go down.
We moored up in Lower Heyford just a few hundred yards from the boat hire place around 1:45. Dermot was suffering badly from his bruised ribs, with the COVID that we all had he was coughing which hurt his ribs, and also he does not sleep well with confined air, and he had not slept at all for two nights. He walked down to the boat hire place, only a 10 minute walk, and got his car and drove home to get some proper sleep.
At about 4:45 the rest of us wandered into the village to find dinner. We went to The Bell and found there was no food Mondays and Tuesdays, which is fairly common. We stayed for a round or two, then retreated to the street where we could borrow their wifi and find a delivery. Eventually we found that Thai To Go was one of the few options, and ordered up.
We originally asked them to deliver to the canal bridge but as there's no cell signal there, I returned to the street outside The Bell and texted that maybe they should deliver there so the card machine would work. They agreed.
While waiting, Morris dancers began arriving and going into the pub. Later they came out and had a practice. I got to watch them do two pieces before the food arrived. I nearly ran to the boat to let them know what was going on but I feared missing the food.
The food came, I took it back to the boat and we had a proper meal on the boat, the first one (mostly) together of the trip, really.
We did most of the cleaning and we got most of our stuff packed up.
=========================
Tuesday 8/20
Tuesday morning we just went about 1/4 mile down the cut to the boat hire place, cleared our stuff out and turned the boat back in. I think the total fuel bill was something like 74 litres of diesel.
Dermot met us there with just Jerry and Gehms' spare luggage that had been stored in the car. Jerry, Jo and Barry took the train to London I think, and Kevin and Tegan to Oxford. Dermot, Perdy and I took the car to Oxford.
Later on Monday Kevin and Tegan turned up at the house to pick up the costuming bag and repack some stuff.
Dermot did a COVID test and was very much positive. The whole lot of us were coughing the whole time and I was running out of energy mid afternoon most days. There's no way that anyone on such a boat won't wind up with anything anyone else has.
=========================
On Wednesday my plan had originally been to tour Bletchley Park with Dermot. However he was not up to the drive and there is effectively no mass transit to there, so I re-thought to go to London to visit Lightroom and their Apollo show, and swing by Novelty Automation, Tim Hunkin's arcade.
However, having had a positive COVID test on Tuesday, I decided that I should not be unnecessarily carrying my germs all over and took Wednesday as a rest day. I did pick up the surprise I'd planned for Jenn, which required several walks to the hardware store.
Thursday was an early morning walk to the bus stop at Headington Shops, to Heathrow and home. Lots of sitting on busses, gates and planes.
=========================
General notes:
For navigation, we did have the official book, but I used the open canal map app, which I found very useful, especially since I had it on me always even when walking between locks or at the pub when we talked about what to do the next day.
I traveled with just one carry-on and a sling bag, which was more than enough - I didn't even wear all the clothes I had between laundry days, and I didn't really need all of the pared-back tech I brought either.
I used our 10 year old Canon G15 camera. While it did the job, it's definitely feeling its age. I'm tossed up about replacing it. It does pretty well. A new camera would certainly improve photos and especially video, but OTOH the Sony RX100 VII that I have my eye on is something like $1300. We'll see if I can save up that much.
I used my phone to record GPX tracks, which is OK but drains the battery and isn't totally stable. I have a dedicated GPS logger on the way for future trips. Trying to figure out where we were and when has been surprisingly difficult. I think some journalling or at least note taking during the trip is definitely a good idea.
More photos here.
