The adventures of Wind-Lass

[cosmolinguist]

I told everyone it was my first vacation that wasn't with my family, or to go see my family, in my life.

Much as I love and miss my childhood trips “up north” to stay in a cabin by a lake and go fishing (the most Minnesotan vacation there could be), and the road trips to Colorado or Washington (state) to visit the extended family, and as much as I pine for Minnesota now and wish I could go back there more often than I do, it was time for something else.

I ended up with three friends on a narrowboat for a week.



I was bad at driving and the boys were happy enough to do it that I didn't need to practice a lot. I found it really stressful but I was better when I finished than when I'd started. This trade-off meant I did (for a while, but we'll get to that) a lot of locks though.



This was taken as we approached Hurleston Junction at the end of the first day of our week-long canal trip. That's me at the top of the lock, ready to let the boat through.

It took me that day to get the hang of the locks (with excellent and patient help from the Daves) but after I did I loved them. Open the gates to let the boat in, close them behind it, run to the other end of the lock, open the sluices and watch the water flow. It only takes a few minutes to fill a lock; the boats are so narrow so the locks can be narrow and fill quickly. When the water levels are mostly even at the top, you close the sluices again, open the front gate, and run back to your boat as it putters away from you. I never got tired of watching a boat big enough for the four of us to live on it rise up, due to my little efforts. (I did sometimes get tired of seeing a lock loom into view just as I was sitting down with something to eat or a fresh cup of tea, though.)

The next day I learned that there were bridges, as well as locks, that we had to jump off the boat and deal with. Watching our boat approach a bridge at such a crazy angle made me dizzy at first, but it was just as well; I was often the one dealing with these things so spent my time turning my windlass as fast as possible to get the bridge up and down.



Moving a whole bridge up into the air to give enough room for our boat to pass underneath really made me feel badass. I know I do a lot less work than the hydraulics and gravity, but still, I'm the one standing there holding the windlass and grinning as my friends go underneath on our boat. It's a short-lived satisfaction as I had to start lowering the bridge as soon as they were clear, so people could use the bridge again (though these weren't busy roads) and I could get back to my slowly-receding boat.

It was one of these bridges, though, that brought my vacation doom: in jumping off the boat, I landed funny and my right knee hurt for more than a week after that. I missed out on a lot of locks that way.



I associate this view with simultaneously grumbling that I was missing out, guilt-tripping myself for leaving so much work to the boys, and wincing whenever I moved my leg.

So I missed out on the staircase lock.



I think I was actually woken up from a nap to see the view from the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, and while I cherished my naptimes on the boat, this was worth it.



The bridge is an amazing feat of engineering: a 1007 foot-long cast iron trough supported 126 feet above the river on iron arched ribs carried on nineteen hollow masonry pillars.



We had a lovely afternoon in Llangollen, eating amazing baked goods and going on the Llangollen Steam Railway.



The steam train ride took us to a little cafe and shop, where I excitedly bought The BHS Space Encyclopedia from 1985 (making it just like ones I read when I was a kid, and thus The Way I Think Space Should Look) and a badge that says "RAILWOMAN." No five-year-old could have been happier with that loot.



The highlight of our trip home was Chirk Castle, wherein many enthusiastic guides told us about various aspects of the castle's life (the stately home, the weapons and armor -- I still have a few rings of mail -- not chain mail -- that I helped make there -- and on the way back we had to traverse something called either a hoho or a haha; I can't remember because I started calling it a hooha, which made the boys laugh. Anyway there's nothing funny about the haha; it's a big ditch I had to jump into, and while Dave made a chivalric gesture in lifting me down, he ended up with a nettle in his bum for his efforts.

One of the best things about canal boat holidays is the other people and boats you encounter on the canal. The people tend to be friendly and chatty, might help you out with a lock or a bridge. And even the boats you pass without a word, abandoned at their moorings or just with stoical helmsmen, can be fascinating. There's a long history of decorative paintwork on the exteriors of the boats, called roses and castles, and some of the boats also have lovely names.



We spent a lot of time speculating on what we'd want in boats of our own. I remember well the conversations about what we'd want to name them. Suggestions ranged from The Snuggly Nook (which I think is awesome, but the partner of the person suggesting it did not agree), and The Pauli Exclusion Principle, which is so important in the lives of cruising canal boats, I always thought as I mopped up tea spilled in slight collisions with the bankside.



And I suppose it's a good thing life's not a destination, because I ended up right back where I started, but I felt a lot better for my vacation.

Comments

[sfred]

*so envious and happy for you*
We walked along a stretch of the Lea Navigation on Saturday and saw lots of narrowboats, which refuelled my desire to live on a boat. (I've never even slept on a boat, so it's an unrealistic desire.)

[cosmolinguist]

I don't know if I'd like to live on a boat, but I'd love some more canal boat holidays. If you end up on one, let me know if I can invite myself along :)

[kmusser]

Sounds lovely :-)

[cosmolinguist]

I think it might be just your sort of thing actually. It's a really different perspective on the world: from the huge amounts of wild flowers and birds you see, to appreciating places that'd take an hour to get to in the car because it's taken you two days to get there, to how precious things like water and electricity become.

[zammis.livejournal.com]

I've looked at doing something similar in the Languedoc/Provence/Canal du Midi. This proves that it would be awesome, I think.

[cosmolinguist]

That does sound awesome :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

I... you changed the ending! I liked the previous one.

[cosmolinguist]

I didn't mean to; I was just trying to add in a paragraph that got left out. I'll see if I can put the ending back :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

\o/

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

That does sound lovely; and how pretty! :D

[cosmolinguist]

I don't usually do photo-heavy entries but I thought this entry warranted it. :)

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks to greyeyedeve for some of the pictures. The rest are from the internet (though as the internet says that lift bridge is just above Wrenbury, it's one I -- or one of us -- will have done, so that's pretty cool too).

[m-malcontent.livejournal.com]

Really cool entry, the words and pictures mix effortlessly.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm really glad to hear that; I was worried it'd just seem like a bunch of boring holiday snaps, but I worked hard on this and tried to tell some stories through those pictures. So good to hear it worked for you :)

[tdaschel.livejournal.com]

a world unknown to me. thank you for a delightful post !

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you for saying so! It was new to me too; I'd seen narrowboats before but had only the roughest idea of what they were like, I knew about locks but only as something that big barges go through...luckily one of our little party used to live on a narrowboat and another had some idea of, like, how to drive them and how to work the locks and bridges and stuff.

[rocketeddy.livejournal.com]

What wonderful pictures! And great writing as always :=)

[cosmolinguist]

How kind of you to say :)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great time!

[the-day-setup.livejournal.com]

This entry almost makes me wish I wasn't an outdoors-hating, vacation-despising, can't-function-without-Internet-and-hot-coffee homebody-introvert-jerk. And I can def see the hot lock action generating a lovely false sense of power. I mean, jeez, you're temporarily breaking roads and stuff. So cool.

[cosmolinguist]

I read your first sentence of this comment out to my husband and, based on that, he likes you :) (I think he'd like you anyway. But I digress.)

It wasn't so bad: we did have hot coffee -- though I think that week we just had tea, but the principle's the same. And occasionally, when my phone had a signal, I'd get a slew of e-mails so there was internet of a sort (though I found myself really not missing it and when I got back home didn't spend much time on the internet at all (by my standards).

I mean, jeez, you're temporarily breaking roads

Awesome way to put it. In the picture of the boat in the lock, where you can see the water gushing in from both sides, you get some idea of how much stuff we were moving; you could watch the boat rise (or fall, but I mostly saw it rise, being inside grumbling about my agonizing knee on the way back) pretty quickly and to think of all that being done by me (or me and a Dave) always made me smile. "Breaking roads" is even better though, I think.

[the-day-setup.livejournal.com]

Right. I still feel incredibly empowered every time I press the button in the classroom that brings the motorized projector screen up and down. I think I would find lock activation quite satisfying. (edit to add: I never would have considered such a possibility before your entry! Now to get on some kind of boat. Which won't happen.)

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

I am so insanely fascinated by locks, omg. *swoons at pictures*

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Now I want to go on a boat like that!