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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2018 6:16:24 GMT
We've more or less decided to head to Llangollen at the start of January, as it's been a few years since we were up there. Then, whilst chatting with a mate who has a boat, he mentioned they're heading to the Macclesfield. Ooh ... maybe we can do that later if Middlewich is open. My brother was talking about our trip to Worcester a few years back when we had a great afternoon at Sixways watching a game and drinking guiness ... and suddenly I'm plotting a course for there. This morning I viewed a brief video of boating at Harefield, and I want to go back down the GU! I don't know how foxy can make such detailed plans, as I can't keep my mind on one destination for two minutes. There's so many great waterways to choose from. Ah well, time for work Rog
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Post by metanoia on Dec 12, 2018 6:58:15 GMT
Quite agree, Rog - too many choices - so I just go whichever way the wind blows.... (literally sometimes!).
If you do head up Llangollen way, bear in mind the Hurleston flight isn't scheduled to re-open until the end of March. Hope to pass you somewhere on your travels this year.
Have a good day - not much longer until you escape now.
Met
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2018 8:13:38 GMT
I'm not really a planner. Currently my boats are over 7ft wide so no coffin locks for me these days. Thames and GU and river Wey are my usual routes. However I am vaguely interested in taking the Colvic down to the river Medway and east coast area if I get round to it in the spring. That would be a good idea.
Slightly bothered that if I go down that way I might never come back !
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Post by naughtyfox on Dec 12, 2018 8:21:58 GMT
I don't know how foxy can make such detailed plans, as I can't keep my mind on one destination for two minutes. I am a fox, not a headless chicken. We are going about it all in a calm and dignified way. By the way, did anyone miss these? photos.app.goo.gl/YW7VXJ1B2xThbaPS7 photos.app.goo.gl/spvY6bwPi2QQRobJ8 I shall try to get some more pics on the way DOWN the Shroppie at Christmas. Black Monkey of Bridge 39, I shall be watching with my axe to hand, so.... watch it!!
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Post by metanoia on Dec 12, 2018 9:04:58 GMT
Hey Foxy - who do you think you are calling me Black Monkey?! - thought you usually referred to me as the Daft Old Bat.
By the way, when did I give you permission to publish my photo?
"LOOK BEHIND YOU......" - I'll probably be at a different bridge this trip .....
Met
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2018 9:48:33 GMT
We have a mix of vague ideas and concrete plans, work and tides mean we sometimes have to stick to a rigid schedule. I prefer the vague idea days though Once on hols or a couple of weeks it's pretty much take each day as they come.
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Post by ianali on Dec 12, 2018 10:19:07 GMT
I think we may go the Welsh route next year. We went up there last year but Ali’s father passed away, it sucked all the joy from the trip. Ali wants to go again under happier circumstances. Then again, we may end up somewhere else. It’s great to have the choice.
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Post by JohnV on Dec 12, 2018 10:48:41 GMT
Next year I have a lot of rough plans ..... the next two weeks, I have to make the decision on my mooring in Benfleet. I will make one last attempt to persuade the moorings owner to allocate me an outside berth, something, that for no reason I can understand, he is refusing to do. (there is a boat I could swap with that is permanently moored and extremely unlikely to ever wish to move and the owner likes the idea) If this fails then the decision is made and I am relocating to a different part of the country. (all the other local moorings are, for me, either unaffordable or unsuitable in some other way) I have two fall back positions here on the river Hull, the mooring here at Beverley is one possibility. I float all the time and I would be able to sail at any high tide but it does involve organising the many bridges that I have to get through before reaching the Humber. If I am relocating, then one job for next summer, is to bring Shapfell up further north. I need to replace the cooling water inlet and filter system while she is out of the water but apart from that, she should be ready to travel ..... so beware you dwellers in the ditches ...... you are within my reach
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Post by quaysider on Dec 12, 2018 11:34:04 GMT
We're "planned" up for the next 2 years... I have to update the website with 2020s plan. Winter months however are fluid and we can do what we want when we want... well we could were it not for all the stoppages to navigate our way around lol.
Unlike Ross though, we're a bit slack in regards finding out about the places we visit - we just sort of turn up and explore... and hope the folk with us appreciate that too. IF they want to look at the route and do their own research before heand, we'll happily follow their leads.
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Post by naughtyfox on Dec 12, 2018 15:14:25 GMT
Hey Foxy - who do you think you are calling me Black Monkey?!
I posted info about the Black Monkey of Bridge 39 a while back.... see if I can find it for you... hold on.... Here's the photo and accompanying text by me: photos.app.goo.gl/osc4ih6mkV6G5TJY6"Here's that telegraph thingy. Bridge 39 is reputedly haunted by a black monkey-like creature, the ghost of a boatman who drowned here in the mid 19th Century. So, we had the axe handy. Just in case." The so-called Man-Monkey of Bridge 39 on Britain's Shropshire Union Canal is a beast that has fascinated me for 20 years. And finally, last year, I was able to put all my findings together on the creature in my book of the same name: Man-Monkey. Described as looking somewhat like a large, aggressive chimpanzee, the beast has beast seen on numerous occasion since the late 1800s, in and around the woods that surround the infamous bridge. But, it was in the pages of Shropshire Folklore - written in 1891 by Charlotte S. Burne and Georgina F. Jackson - that the story was first brought to people's attention. As Burne's wrote: "A very weird story of an encounter with an animal ghost arose of late years within my knowledge. On the 21st of January 1879, a labouring man was employed to take a cart of luggage from Ranton in Staffordshire to Woodcock, beyond Newport in Shropshire, for the ease of a party of visitors who were going from one house to another. He was late in coming back; his horse was tired, and could only crawl along at a foot’s pace, so that it was ten o’clock at night when he arrived at the place where the highroad crosses the Birmingham and Liverpool canal. "Just before he reached the canal bridge, a strange black creature with great white eyes sprang out of the plantation by the roadside and alighted on his horse’s back. He tried to push it off with his whip, but to his horror the whip went through the thing, and he dropped it on the ground in fright. "The poor, tired horse broke into a canter, and rushed onwards at full speed with the ghost still clinging to its back. How the creature at length vanished, the man hardly knew. He told his tale in the village of Woodseaves, a mile further on, and so effectively frightened the hearers that one man actually stayed with friends there all night, rather than cross the terrible bridge which lay between him and his home." And thus the Man-Monkey's reign of terror began... manbeastuk.blogspot.com/2008/04/man-monkey-of-bridge-39.htmlYou owe me 1 beer for digging up that research again
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2018 16:36:28 GMT
Quite agree, Rog - too many choices - so I just go whichever way the wind blows.... (literally sometimes!). If you do head up Llangollen way, bear in mind the Hurleston flight isn't scheduled to re-open until the end of March. Hope to pass you somewhere on your travels this year. Have a good day - not much longer until you escape now. Met Thanks re Hurlestone. If we head up there, we'll take our time. Rog
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Post by Mr Stabby on Dec 12, 2018 19:25:53 GMT
The first time I went to the Caldon Canal I changed my mind at Etruria Junction and went to the River Weaver instead.
Fabulous trip, and I did do the Caldon on a later occasion. Current plan for the first trip next year is still the Lancaster Canal but plans are always a moveable feast from the moment I motor off from the mooring.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2018 19:52:00 GMT
Are there scrote problems around the bottom of the welsh branch? All this talk of narrow canals makes me want to have a narrow boat again. Last time I came through Hurleston locks was just before the millennium. We turned left up the main line and spent new year in middle of nowhere near Ellesmere Port. Happy days. Narrow boats are too narrow though. I'm sure 12 years living on one is what drove me insane. I'd quite like to have one again one day though to be fair !!!
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Post by naughtyfox on Dec 12, 2018 19:52:43 GMT
If you do head up Llangollen way, bear in mind the Hurleston flight isn't scheduled to re-open until the end of March. !! CRT stoppages says it closes on 2nd Jan and re-opens 29th March !! Is this correct?
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Post by naughtyfox on Dec 12, 2018 19:54:07 GMT
Quite agree, Rog - too many choices - so I just go whichever way the wind blows.... (literally sometimes!). If you do head up Llangollen way, bear in mind the Hurleston flight isn't scheduled to re-open until the end of March. Hope to pass you somewhere on your travels this year. Have a good day - not much longer until you escape now. Met Thanks re Hurlestone. If we head up there, we'll take our time. Rog !! CRT stoppages says it closes on 2nd Jan and re-opens 29th March !! Is this correct? (anyway, it's Hurleston, Rog, feel free to steal an 'e')
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