It was a great pleasure in amongst my canal cruising this autumn to welcome, all the way from Canada, the RV Geeks onto my boat. They joined me for a day to experience narrowboat cruising, even taking the tiller and steering the boat.
Starting from just above Stoke Hammond lock, in this trip I did a mammoth journey (for me) on a beautiful sunny October day, up through Milton Keynes, continuing through Cosgrove and ultimately ending up at Yardley Gobion where there was a boatyard I could ask about a newly-found and substantial diesel leak on my engine.
This is NOT a vlog. It is “Slow TV” – real time footage from the bow camera as I took the narrowboat from Grove lock through Leighton Buzzard and up to Stoke Hammond.
In anticipation of both some friends coming to join me for an afternoon, and then some special guests from overseas coming aboard a few days later, I edged just a few miles further north on this leg of my trip up the Grand Union canal, mooring my narrowboat at a point where both sets of visitors could easily find and get to me.
Here’s the unedited (bar one cut) footage from the bow of my narrowboat as I cruised from the end of the Wendover Arm on the Grand Union canal back up to the junction with the main canal at Bulbourne.
Having turned around at Cowroast, my narrowboat journey on the Grand Union canal now continued north but with a diversion down the short length of the restored Wendover Arm. The navigable canal is only about 1.5 miles long so far and I found it quite narrow and shallow but quite scenic. I moored right at the far end where there’s a large winding hole.
Filmed in the last week of September 2018, this was the last part on my autumn cruise in which I headed south; the plan always was to turn around at the end of the month and go back. For logistical reasons – LOTS of upcoming locks! – it also made sense to do a 180 degree turn at this point.
Continuing my Autumn 2018 cruise down the Grand Union canal, I head from near Slapton lock to Marsworth, going through about nine locks and one swing bridge in the process. A lovely – but long (ish) day.
In my continuing narrowboat adventures for autumn 2018 I finally exit Milton Keynes and out into the countryside through Soulbury and down towards Leighton Buzzard and Linslade, where I stop to restock my food supplies at a very handy mooring next to a supermarket, then go on to the countryside again, almost not getting a mooring due to low water levels.
After a few days at different places in Milton Keynes, it was time for me to move on but the weather had different ideas and a tree across the canal put paid to movement for an evening. Eventually I was able to get going again and back out into the countryside, ending up near Stoke Hammond.