Narrow Boating

With no internet access during my travels, it was impossible to blog so I have a bit of catching up to do! I spent the last 3 weeks in the UK with friends and we spent one of the weeks traveling through the canals of central England on a narrow boat. We've all known each other for nearly 30 years which is a requirement when you are living in such a small space for a week! We mastered the art of going up and down the locks and I think we stopped at every pub along the way! Our boat was from Shakespeare Classic Lines and every one of their boats is named after a Shakespeare character. Ours was the "Falstaff". Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. We on the other hand did not lead anyone into trouble!!

Here is a tour of our boat. There were 5 of us and the boat sleeps 6 so we had plenty of room!!!!





Here we are pulling into a lock, the lock filling with water and then exiting at the new level. We must have gone through 30 or more of these ranging in depth of 5 to 11 feet - although some seemed bigger! No lock-keepers to help us so we had to open and close them all ourselves which kept everyone on their toes!