England by Narrowboat

They call it flat water here in the Midlands of England. Unless the wind is well up, the spidery network of narrow waterways that crisscrosses England barely shows a ripple, much less a current. Perhaps that’s what makes a slow-paced, self-directed tour of these canals such a charming holiday for the traveler in search of something unique.

The Midlands, and the bulk of England’s canal system, lies northwest of London, roughly from Stratford-upon-Avon on up into Liverpool, Manchester and the Yorkshire counties. On these canals, not terribly wide or deep, raised and lowered here and there by locks, long, narrow barges once were loaded with goods, towed by horses and steered by rudders.

But now, the old barges have been closed in to create comfortable cruisers, complete with galleys, beds, sitting areas, toilets, even showers and central heat. Due to the working width of many of the locks, these diesel cruisers, called narrowboats, are no more than 7 feet wide, and range in length from the mid-30s to no more than 70 feet.

Our family--my wife, Kathy, our son Andy and I--had visited the United Kingdom several times, but Andy was older now, more capable and open to new experiences, and we wanted a “different” English vacation.

After learning of the canals through British travel magazines, we set about gathering a host of brochures from English companies that rent, or as they say in Britain, “hire” narrowboats. Most of the flyers described each boat in the company’s fleet, with floor plans and inventories of on-board supplies--typically a full set of kitchen gear, linens and duvets for the berths, towels and other necessities. Most listed prices for weekly and longer cruises. We learned that rental rates vary widely with length of hire, size and quality of the boat, and time of year--from $350 to $1,400 per week in low season to $1,025 to $2,300 per week in the high-demand summer months.

We selected the 54-foot Juniper from Middlewich Narrowboats in the Midlands city of Middlewich (off-season rental rate: $850 for the week). Little did we know--and we would not have believed it if told--that we would so warm up to this mode of travel that we’d plan a second trip.

In late March, we found ourselves unloading our luggage from a taxi in Middlewich, a somewhat industrial town in the county of Cheshire, about a 30-minute ride from Manchester Airport. We were at the very hub of England’s historic Northwest Canal System. From the Middlewich Narrowboats Boatyard on the Trent & Mersey Canal, three main narrowboating routes radiate, each leading to other canal choices, with numerous alternate routes and side canals. This was the area where English canals started. Where, after years of neglect and overgrowth, British Waterways took over and restored many of the canals to working order. Today, one often finds long, winding runs with undergrowth and overhanging trees creating a sense of natural isolation hard to find elsewhere in this sometimes crowded country.

Already I had made my first mistake: Even though I’m susceptible to jet lag, we hadn’t allowed an overnight to recover before it was time to make our acquaintance with the Juniper. And, with our piles of luggage, we had arrived too early for check-in. Politely, the owners allowed us to stow it on the boat for several hours.

We were granted, though, our first glimpse of Juniper, riding in murky green water. At 6-foot-4, I found I had to enter the aft cabin door backward. The stairway forward past the bathroom and the double-bunk berth had to be walked sideways. However, the galley and sitting area and the double doors to the forward cockpit could be handled standing up.

Far more frightening was standing on the aft deck, where the tiller and rudder that pilot the boat are located, and looking forward along the solid steel hull and outer cabin structure. The bow of the boat seemed a long way off. My wife and I looked at each other and later verbalized our simultaneous thought: “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Though dating back to Roman days, when it was a salt mining center, Middlewich is not one of the most charming of British towns, offering little by way of entertainment. We did find a nice pub and a supermarket at which to buy a few provisions for the trip.

At 4 in the afternoon, we re-boarded the Juniper and waited for an available employee to give us our “tuition” (training) on boat use. I had already concluded that having once rented a rowboat with a small engine to putter around a lake in North Carolina was not going to help much in steering a 54-foot narrowboat. Features vary widely, but virtually all such boats have a rear-tiller operation and an open-forward cockpit. Inside, most include a flush toilet, working galley, shower and dining area. Berths and storage space tend to depend on length.

Our trainer walked us through the inside of the boat, passing along guidance at a rapid pace, punctuated with a “Right!” each time he finished something and was ready to move along. Fortunately, the crew (my wife and son) listened well, considering that I, the captain, was barely awake.

Finally we reached the aft end. It turned out we were expected to conduct daily maintenance checks on the diesel engine, a matter that had not been mentioned in the descriptive brochures or the operational guidance notes sent to us. The trainer also showed us how to check the propeller for blockage, an operation that, if not done thoroughly, can allow the bilge to fill rapidly and the narrowboat to sink into the canal.

I was shown how to start the boat, and all of us--instructor and crew--pulled away from the security of the dock into the canal, made narrower by boats on either side. Before long we made our first turn, from the Trent & Mersey Canal into the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union, locally called the “Shroppie.”

Immediately thereafter, we approached the first lock, the moment Kathy had feared since we first committed to the trip. She and 11-year-old Andy, the designated lock workers, were taken above for a bit of tutelage at the “paddles” and “gates.” They must have done something right because the huge doors of the lock opened, looking much larger in real life than in the pictures.

I managed to put the boat into the lock without hitting too much. Miraculously, the boat rose, the upper gates opened, the boat motored out, everyone got back on board and we proceeded ahead, moving at the Juniper’s top speed of 4 mph.

As we went under the next bridge, a few hundred feet ahead, our teacher jumped ashore and wished us well. Just like that.

Juniper, in addition to being 54 feet long, weighed about 20 tons. Yet after 30 minutes of walk-through and roughly 20 minutes on the water, we were left entirely in control of it. Alternately exhausted from a long trip, scared to death of potentially destroying a $45,000 boat and strangely titillated by the promise of the week that lay ahead, we reached roughly the outside city limits of Middlewich before tying up for the night (no traveling on the canal is allowed after dark) and falling into a welcome sleep.

The next day--a Saturday--we awakened to a weak sun and what sounded like voices. Once dressed, we stepped out on the aft deck to find ourselves surrounded in both directions by about 30 fishermen. We had moored, it seemed, in one of the best Middlewich-area fishing patches, and no one would mind if we moved along, and soon.

Boating and fishing maintain a touchy, if reasonably calm, truce along English canal ways. Britain’s extensive canal system was built in the mid-1700s as a way to move the products of the Industrial Revolution from town to town, since the roads were very poor. After 150 years, the canals began to fade, fill in, collapse, shut down. The traditional wooden narrowboats and their live-aboard families--with minuscule cabins and colorful painted rose, castle and diamond decorations--began to disappear too, along with their unique lifestyle. In the 1940s, the publication of nostalgic books such as L.T.C. Rolt’s “Narrow Boat” brought about a slow but sure metamorphosis. As one trade shrank, a new life for the canals surfaced: pleasure boating.

Thus the canals were created first for boats. But fishing is popular too, and fishermen are quick to become annoyed with boaters who move through too fast and stir up the waters. Most fishermen use very long, multi-part rods that reach across the canal and into the reedy spots on the far side. As one tools along, they either lift the long rods up to let you pass underneath, or pull them back into the hedgerow along their side.

We got underway through another lock, at which point we began to gain confidence. Although I lightly bashed the canal wall making the turn into the main canal to Chester, sending fire extinguishers and such flying inside the boat, I was undaunted. With each mile and each lock through the intriguing countryside accomplished, we felt more in tune with the rumbling engine, the flowing water, the ducks and swans and moor hens, the improving odds in our favor.

We moored up the second night just below a very pleasant country pub, recommended by a passerby at the Bunbury locks. Many narrowboaters eat all their meals aboard. But being great pub fans, we quickly scheduled our day’s travels so as to have breakfast on board but most lunches and dinners at pubs on shore.

For the most part, you can walk to pubs, shops and nearby towns, since many of them grew there because of the canals. In the occasional city, bus service will take you where you need to go. With a few exceptions (notably Manchester and Birmingham), the canals are relatively crime-free: Locking up the doors and walking off seems to work fine.

Here at the Shady Oak and other pubs along the way--though some are more restaurant than traditional pub--we found the pub grub excellent. Travel guides for years have complained about British food. Either we’re less selective than these gourmands or the food has improved, for we found the eating (and, for the adults, the ales) much to our liking.

Another good night’s sleep helped jet lag to fade. Mom and Dad awoke the next morning to find that our younger crew member had already accomplished the morning engine check by himself. As a result, we were quickly off toward the ancient city of Chester.

Passing down through the final five locks, we made our way along into the city and our next great challenge: turning around. Just past where we planned to moor was the quaintly named “winding hole” (pronounced “like the wind that blows,” said the guidebook).

Inconveniently, the wind was, in fact, blowing, and the current pushed the boat toward the nearby bridge as we attempted to turn 20 tons of boat around. We nearly managed it, but the boat became stuck--the bow against the far wall, and the stern against the bridge wall. Above us on the bridge, many local citizens were entertained by our gyrations.

Valiantly, however, the crew pulled the bow rope as I pushed the stern away from the bridge. Slowly, humorously (apparently), we completed the turn. Within minutes, we tied up and quickly decided that the Mill Hotel nearby looked like a great place to spend the next two nights.

This unanimous crew decision turned out very well: We could stand up in the shower and not worry about running out of water. (On the boat, it must be replaced each day by finding a “water point” [spigot] and attaching a hose to fill the below-decks tank.) But by the end of our stay in Chester, a delightful city with Roman, medieval and modern attributes, we actually looked forward to rejoining the boat.

On Tuesday morning, we started a lazy cruise back to home base. The boat continued to perform well; we continued to gain confidence and ability in handling it. We returned to the pub we had so enjoyed on the way down. We found that we were capable of teaching other beginners, who we passed going in the opposite direction at locks, and we made both of the turns on the return trip without hitting anything. Despite a significant breeze on the last day of travel, maneuvering was more skill than exercise in terror.

We arrived back at the boatyard the night before we were due, to sleep over and save a last-minute rush, and we found ourselves “gongoozling” with other boaters at the locks just north of the boatyard. (Gongoozling is a term for locals and others who hang out at the locks with nothing better to do than help crank the paddles with windlasses--to allow water to flow in or out of the lock--and close or open gates.)

In a short week, we had learned a great deal, become comfortable with life “on the cut,” truly enjoyed ourselves, and worked well as a family team. We left Juniper that April morning with honest regret that we could not take her out for another week.

We remedied that regret last summer by hiring another 54-foot narrowboat, this time from Black Prince Holidays, Ltd., based at Stoke-on-Trent. It’s no reflection on Middlewich; Black Prince’s Lucille (high-season rental rate: $2,500 for two weeks) just happened to have a layout more directly suited to our needs.

This time our trip was longer, at 12 days, and we completed an entire ring: interconnected canals that take you on a longish circuit from Point A back to Point A. The Four Counties Ring, which we took, covers 110 miles and 94 locks; we added an extra leg northward from Middlewich to fill out the 12 days.

This time, after 130 miles and more than 100 locks navigated, and only getting stuck in shallow parts half a dozen times (a common canal occurrence), we felt quite qualified to consider ourselves inspired amateurs.

As with our earlier trip, we had passed through a diverse countryside--from tree-lined green passages barely wider than the boat itself, and a 1 1/2-mile-long tunnel black as night, to stretches of old industrial territory and bucolic pastures filled with sheep and cows. It’s a peaceful, laid-back lifestyle in which you become a temporary resident, often finding something completely different around the next bend.

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GUIDEBOOK

Canal Cruising for Beginners

Getting there: American, United, British Airways and Continental offer connecting flights (one plane change) from LAX to Manchester; fares begin at $866 round trip.

Narrowboat notes: Many companies rent narrowboats along Midlands canals, both self-drive and ones that are piloted for you--more like floating hotels.

The following list of self-drive companies is representative but by no means complete.

Middlewich Narrowboats, 46 Canal Terrace, Middlewich, Cheshire, England CW10 9BD; telephone 011-44-1606-832460, fax 011-44-1606-737912.

Black Prince Holidays Ltd., Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 4LA; tel. 011-44-1527-575115.

Alvechurch Boat Centres, Scarfield Wharf, Alvechurch, Birmingham B48 7SQ; tel. 011- 44-1214-452909.

Anglo-Welsh Waterway Holidays, 5 Pritchard St., Bristol BS2 8RH; tel. 011-44-117- 9241200.

Bridgewater Boats, Castle Wharf, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire; tel. 011-44-1442-863615.

Claymoore Navigation, The Wharf, Preston Brook, Cheshire WA4 4BA; tel. 011-44-1928- 717273.

Countrywide Cruisers, The Wharf, Brewood, Staffordshire ST19 9BG; tel. 011-44-1902- 850166.

Rose Narrowboats, Stretton-Under-Fosse, Warwickshire CV23 OPU; tel. 011-44-1788- 832449.

A broader range of options, including links to information and rental companies, is offered on the following Internet sites: https://www.canalboats .co.uk/index.htn; https://www .blacksheep.org/canals/index .htm; and https://www.pigpen .demon.co.uk/canals.htm.

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10176-0799; tel. (800) GO 2 BRITAIN (462-2748), Internet https://www.usagateway.visitbritain.com.