Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago we were on holiday in England and spent two weeks in a hired narrowboat with Susan's sister, travelling a loop which included Worcester, Tewkesbury, Stratford upon Avon and Birmingham. Even though we made no plans, I think that it was somewhere along the way that the first thoughts of resettling in England started.

The canal boat was a 42 foot "Clee Hill" class (I don't know how beginners cope with 70' boats) with just about all one needed, including bathroom/toilet, kitchen, wood burning stove. For 3 people it was more or less big enough.

The first complete day we had to navigate the Tardebigge Flight - a run of 30 locks - followed by the Stoke Prior set of 6 locks. This meant that on the first day we only covered 5km, but had very little fear of locks for the rest of the trip. Susan got really good at them, and we never dropped a lock key into the water once.

Another highlight was a couple of aquaducts - watery bridges over rivers or railway lines. 

All in all, a great 2 week break, although we really tried to cram just a little bit too much in. One day we might try repeat it, but travel half the distance in the same time frame. For those for whom this kind of thing is interesting I mapped the whole trip onto Google Earth (surely there is at least one other person in the world who does this...). If you know how to operate Google Earth you can fly along our whole trip.

Twenty years ago....