Last Blog of the Trip

We are now at the end of our trip for this year and back on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.  We have been out for 25 weeks, we have travelled 382 miles through 8 different counties, namely Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire and done 428 locks (some narrow and some wide beam) and 11 tunnels, most of which we did twice on nine canals and one river, most of this trip was new to us which was exciting seeing new places and sometimes a bit scary as not knowing quite what to expect.  A few lift and swing bridges were thrown in for good measure.

We visited some really interesting places like Coventry and Leicester and found some lovely villages and places some right on the canal and some a short walk away or train ride away.  We made some new friends, Book & Spud (aka Ian and Clare) who we travelled up the locks at Braunston with and had a laugh along the way.  We hope to remain in touch with them and see them again on our travels in the future and remain friends for years to come.  We also met up again with the three P’s, Pat , Patrick and Poochie and travelled with them down the Stratford canal and spent a couple of days in Stratford together which was lovely before they headed off down the River Avon and we went back up the canal.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see our Audlem family this year, Jane, Malcolm, Dave and Anthea as our travels this time didn’t take us that way, but next year we are headed up the Shropshire Union canal so will look forward to seeing  them all then.

We also met up with John, Sharon and Smuggler on Thomazina and spent a couple of days with them catching up and having fun as always.  Smuggler also came to stay with us near the end of our trip for 10 days while John & Sharon went abroad on holiday, we loved having him to stay even if I did have to give my chair up for him!!

We had visits from Steve and Ian who came roaring to see us in their lovely Morgan cars, and also a visit from Jon, Davina and James when we were in Warwick.  It was lovely that they all made the effort to come and find us while we were travelling around the country.

It has been such a great trip, the weather was very kind to us, we were only confined to barracks due to rain for about 3 to 4 days in the whole trip.  We have really enjoyed travelling around again without any time constraints and can’t wait for next year’s trip.

It has been good fun doing this blog and great that our friends and family have been following our progress, so thanks to everyone who has had a look.  This will be our last blog for this year as we are now going to hibernate on the Gloucester & Sharpness canal for the winter, but we will be out travelling the canals and rivers next year and doing our blog and hope you will follow us then.

Kev & Sheila