Oscar and Garfield have come on holiday again, this time in a huge narrowboat (the biggest you can get!) on the Four Counties Ring, which is a group of canals that join together to make a ring, or circle.
I have to steer the boat, ‘cos neither Oscar nor Garfield can stand on the back deck and see what’s going on. Or maybe that’s their excuse to let me do the work while they sit on the roof and watch the beautiful scenery go by.
One thing is for sure, you would sure enjoy this trip. Canals are different from rivers because they have locks. These are like air chambers on space craft, with gates on each end. They are used to change levels, i.e. to go up or down a hill. So every time we get to a lock, everyone has to leap off the boat and operate the locks. Great fun.
We did 26 locks in one day, the same day we went through the Harecastle Tunnel. Now THAT was scary!! The tunnel is 1.76 miles long, which means it takes 45 minutes to get from one end to the other. You drive the boat into inky black darkness and then your eyes adjust so you can see where you are going, then you hear a loud bang as the doors close behind you and a roaring sound as big fans draw air through the tunnel to keep fresh air around you. Well, I say you can see. Not properly you can’t. It’s really hard to peer through the tunnel. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it doesn’t seem to get any bigger until the last 5 minutes. Then suddenly you pop out the other end and into bright sunshine. Wonderful and quite amazing. A brilliant adventure!!
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