Latest Adventures
The Journey – Where did it start?
Condor - V and A Waterfront, Cape Town Yesterday I was back on the internet looking at some of my favourite boats. Shock and horror - Most of them have now been sold! I console myself with the notion that I am not quite ready to buy our dream craft yet anyway, and the...
Boating at Cape Town
Sailing in Table Bay - Cape Town The South Easter is blowing a gale here today, about 35 knots, and the forecast is much the the same for the next couple of days. Most of my friends know I would like to buy a boat in Europe, and often ask why I dont just get a boat...
From locks to lifts
Anderton Boat Lift Cruising the waterways is not only wonderfuly relaxing, but can be fascinating. On the Trent and Mersey canal, we found the Anderton Boat Lift. One of the 'Seven Wonders of the Waterways' it is one of the only 2 working boat lifts in the UK. It was...
Locks, locks and more locks
Marple - Lock 15 As I mentioned in the previous post, the Cheshire Ring has a lot of locks - 92 to be precise. And they come in batches. We collected our narrowboat near Congleton close to the SW end of Macclesfield, and headed off in an anticlockwise direction....
Aqueducts, Tunnels and Locks
Crossing the Marple Aquaduct As promised - more delights of the Cheshire Ring. This circular waterway route is possibly one of the most scenic, covering a distance of 97 miles, through 92 locks, 5 tunnels and over many aquaducts. The first picture shows us...
Bridges, bridges and more bridges
Approaching Snake Bridge on Macclesfield Canal Despite the fact that bridges can set height restrictions for one's boat, they are a beautiful and interesting facet of the waterways. In 2007 we did a 14 day trip around the Cheshire Ring, on a hired traditional...
Boats and bridges
Narrowboat "Sextant" By now I am sure you know how we feel about France, so you can probably see where this urge to buy a boat springs from. There are more than 6000 kilometres of canals or rivers in France, and that doesnt include the Brittany area. What better way...
How we fell in love with France – Part 4 – Language and lifestyle
Street in Paris The French definitely know how to enjoy life, and the language is wonderful to listen to. Not easy to speak, and even harder to understand, but certainly lovely to hear. The first picture shows a street in Paris with evocative sounding shop types -...
How we fell in love with France – Part Three – Lifestyle
The French seem to have got this right. In my post of 4th December I touched on this when writing about the French lockkeepers and their working hours. Enjoying life appears to be the important bit, and work an inconvenient necessity. Nevertheless, things...
How we fell in love with France Part 2 – food and wine
Before I continue raving about France, let me tell your where we went geographically. We started at Joigny on the River Yonne, and headed South, or upstream. Our first overnight stop was at Migennes, where the Canal de Bourgogne flows into the Yonne. Next we stayed a...
About Me
My love of boats goes back to my early years when I went on holiday with my parents to Knysna in the Cape.
We stayed at a hotel on stilts, and I played in rowing boats and little motor boats on the lagoon.