Last weekend, while Bryan and Fergus were off on a soccer/football tour in Croatia (Bryan's blog on that to come...eventually), Ruth and I decided to embark on a somewhat unconventional girls' weekend away - driving her parents' canal boat (or narrowboat) down a curvy 9-mile or so stretch of the Oxford Canal, from around Priors Hardwick to just above Claydon. We left Friday night after work, hopped on a 90-minute train to Banbury, aboard which we ate a picnic dinner (of delicious homemade food that her mum packed for us), called a cab to drive us north and drop us off as close as possible to the canal, and trekked along the canal-side towpath at dusk, until we arrived at the modest "Peerie Dunter," her parents' canal boat which was moored near Priors Hardwick. Peerie Dunter, which means Small Duck in Shetland (where Ruth's mother is from), is equipped with a small bed, floor space for another small mattress, mini kitchen, chairs and table, tiny loo, and front-end outdoor patio - basically a quaint and narrow motorhome on water. After a long evening of hot chocolate and girl chat (ie: wedding plans), we awoke on Saturday to the early morning sun. The morning hours on the canal are absolutely breathtaking, especially at this time of year. It is quiet and crisp, with abundant wildlife (many with adorable young in tow), much like the serene morning hours at a campsite. After making an almost-full English breakfast, we meticulously accomplished her father's three pages of step-by-step instructions for getting the boat started and ready to go, pushed off the canal edge, and began our adventure. With Ruth steering at the back, and myself navigating from the front patio, we coasted at a leisurely pace down the canal (maximum speed on the canal is 4 mph, and oddly enough, boats are driven on the right-side of the canal...opposite of UK roads). We delicately navigated through several extremely low and narrow bridges, passed heaps of other canal boats (quite proud of ourselves, being two young women passing by boats with mostly older gentlemen as the operators), and thoroughly enjoyed the stunningly lush countryside, gawking slightly at the numerous calves, lambs, and families of ducklings. We managed to cruise throughout most of Saturday, enduring only a couple of scrapes (to the boat, not to us), and one incident of getting stuck in the thick reeds on the side, as we courteously pulled over just before entering a bridge, for an oncoming boat.
Finding a proper place to moor the boat overnight proved to be a bit difficult, but we were able to pull in just above the flight of Claydon locks, at about 5:30 pm, after which we sat on the patio with a bottle of wine and watched the sun set behind the fields. Sunday morning involved a few cups of tea, a lazy stroll along the canal path, where Ruth showed me how to operate the canal locks whilst we chatted with the bustling crowd of canal-boat owners, queuing up to enter the Claydon flight of locks. After cleaning up the boat, locking up (basically following the instructional list in reverse order), and calling a cab to pick us up in Claydon, we caught a late-afternoon train back from Banbury to London, reluctantly leaving the serene canal life behind us.
We've already started talking dates for our next narrowboat escape...and maybe, just maybe, we'll take the boys next time...
Navigating the Canal
Our favorite bridge - The Boundary Lift Bridge
Our peaceful Saturday evening
Sunday morning teatime
A birds-eye view of the Claydon locks
Thanks Ruth, for a lovely girls' weekend away...-B
"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." - Kenneth Grahame
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