Photo Galleries

Trip Reports

Reviews

Articles

Appendices - Trip Reports 2006.

Trip Report - Brookwood, Basingstoke Canal Campaign Rally to Thrupp, S. Oxford Canal, Sat 27th May - Sun 4th June 2006. by Mandy Knight.

Sat 27th May: Arrived at Brookwood,about 9.00am to find boats and prepare them for showing. Lots of interest with the boats and many people coming by and saying thankyou for being there!! We were graced with showing the boats to the Mayor of Woking,who had a full guided tour. Had a sudden downpour late afternoon which dispersed the crowds so we packed up and went home just after 5.30pm. Sun 28th May: Got back to the boats really early, to do pump-out and sort out the boats....huge amount of interest, several old members of N.B.T asking about the whereabouts of ALTON????we were also filmed by Surrey & Hants Canal Society for a promotional vide. Had vists from John Bull, Dave Vickers and family ,the Clutterbucks and saw John Fevyer on and off all weekend. We actually stayed on board that night too, and the illuminated boat procession was one of the best we had ever seen! Mon 29th May: We followed Renfrew and Theo down to the locks just after 9am, got to St John's and the heavens opened but once the boats were in the lock we had no problems and the sun came back out. 2nd lock was no problem either but at the 3rd lock we were met by Colin a NBT member who had come to give a hand.... and then we found we could not get one gate open, so we bow-hauled the butty out and then manouvered the motor out. We were then joined by John Bull and his lock wheeling team, to give a hand with the remaining locks and ended up doing most twice, and the canal ranger was following locking all the gates so we had no one following us down. We were very grateful for the help and once we had done the last lock we decided to grab a cup of tea, so everyone left us to it...unbeknown to us that after our tea, we would get both boats well and truly stuck in small section before coming out on to the Wey...it was so shallow...we managed to free ourselves with a lot of hard work but out problems weren't over because on the Wey,when we tried to moor it was so shallow again we got stuck again, and after some frustration we ended the day by mooing at the bottom of New Haw lock..and rewarded our selves with a fantastic chinese takeaway...... Tuesday 30th May: Left New Haw at 8.30am,all the locks on the Wey i could not budge,rob ended up doing them all..out of the Thames lock and onto Shepperton,where our saga continued with the lock keeper not knowing what to charge us so an inspector was called and we were kept at the top of the lock until everthing was sorted..frantic phone calls were made until we had the correct paper work..we were eventually allowed to go on our way and we made steady progress mooring at Runnymede at about 5.30pm. Wednesday 31st May: Left at 8.30 and made good progress all day at each lock we were asked to show our paperwork,had lunch on the move and moored at Crookham Reach for the night and took ourselves of for a pizza and beer. Thursday Ist June: Left just after 8,and continued on our way ,at Hurley lock the lock keeper again quizzed us about our paper work,but when we got to the next lock he had telephoned ahead and apologised!!ended up mooring at the bottom of Sonning lock for the night. Friday 2nd June: Decided to have along day and left at 7am,had breakfast ,and lunch on the go,ended up at Abingdon at about 7.30 and had diffulculty finding a mooring,but managed to moor at the bottom of the lock, Saturday 3rd June: Left at 7am,and continued on our way,when we got to Oxford we decided to go via the dukes cut as neither of us had done this before ,it was such a lovely day ,really hot...the dukes cut was very overgrown and windy,but we managed it and at last we were on the Oxford canal,we moored after the first lock and had a break and lunch,then continued on our way much to chris and rob,s delight 3 boat fulls of women in little more than bikinis came past ...but got to our final destination at Thrupp just after 7,but it took us ages to try a moor the boats it was just to shallow to leave the boats singularily so we ended up having to breast them up..with difficulty ,i got stung by stinging nettles and rob got a wet foot..but we ended up having a lovely meal at the JOLLY BOATMAN... Sunday 4th June: We got up and cleaned the boats before our lift came at 11am,had a really enjoyable trip as usual the children worked so hard ,we are really proud of them,and we all ended up with a suntan!!!

The Narrow Boat Trust is a charity registered in England under number: 288243

The Registered Office of the Narrow Boat Trust is at:
23 Redway Drive, TWICKENHAM TW2 7NT

email: webmaster@narrowboattrust.org