I always associate my birthday month of march as the beginning of spring, so the frosty start of our maiden voyage was a stark little reminder of our new cruising location. Still, the bright, cloudless morning was a pleasant welcome for Liz, myself and my brother Marcus who was up for the weekend. In fact, we can thank Marcus for getting our arses into gear after asking if his first visit on Happidaze was going to spent cruising the cut or stuck in the boatyard.
For context, we’re in south yorkshire on the pretty Stainforth and Keadby Canal. We’ll be heading west towards the New Junction Canal, where we’ll turn northwards. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t anticipated how ‘interactive’, for want of a better word, this trip would be. All points illustrated with a green marker show you where we had to hop off the boat and do something. This includes our first swing bridge at Bramwith, our first lock, a double chamber jobby. No, we didn’t know what this was either. Another swing bridge, followed by two lift bridges. Whoever said canal boating was sedate got that completely wrong because by the end of the weekend we were knackered!
The question is, how did we get on? You can find all the answers, including how we coped after losing our bow thruster, in this week’s episode.
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