Stay in Britain on a Narrow Boat Holiday

                                                                                         

Recently, a myself and two of my brothers decided on a weekends holiday on the Grand Union Canal. We thought of it as “three men in a boat” our wives decided on “Brothers behaving badly”. We took my brother’s narrow boat which is called The Narrow Escape and headed from Aylesbury through the lovely Buckinghamshire countryside to Hemel Hempstead and then back to Aylesbury to where we had parked the cars. In all we were away for three nights.

This was one of the most enjoyable holidays I have had; the ability to travel slowly along quiet waterways, full of fish and wildlife, with herons sitting like sentinels every few hundred yards and even Kingfishers were to be seen as they hunted the fish in the canal. The only traffic was other narrow boats, which without exception proved to be friendly and hospitable. It helps that the three of us share a love of nature, good beer and that have a common sense of humour. Navigating the locks was always a lot of fun and my brother Norman, who owns the boat and should have a least some experience, seemed to be able to travel back and forwards across the canal instead of in a straight line and was soon nicknamed by us, “Captain Zigzag” (and that was before we had a drink).

Every few miles all along the route there were pubs and restaurants that catered for the passing traffic, many serving ales that I had never heard of before or there was easy access from the canal to little unspoilt villages. To be able to travel a few miles, sit outside an old English pub in the sunshine, with a pint of real ale and ploughman’s lunch, in good company, is my idea of heaven. And then we would get back on the boat and leisurely chug down the canal until it was time for another beer or something to eat. In the evening we would moor at one of the many mooring points along the bank, most with watering facilities and then head off into a sleepy village to explore the available pubs and restaurants. In one of them, we found a range of six real ales pumps from a brewery none of us had ever heard of. In the end we sampled a pint of each before deciding the first was the best and having another. Back to the boat and we slept very soundly. At the end of the weekend my sides were aching, we had laughed that much and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves

The boat was equipped with everything you could wish for and the idea that a narrow boat is necessarily a rough and ready form of accommodation is way off the mark. OK my brothers boat is a bit of a wreck but there were narrow boats on the canal that were like a floating 5 star hotel, with double bedrooms and on-board Jacuzzis, satellite TV and broadband. If you want something a little different and the freedom to travel where you want, at a pace that suits you, go for a narrow boat holiday. You wont regret it.

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