Hail to the Hive!

So we are finally back in the wild, roaming free and released from the confines of the Marina, although we did really enjoy the Marina in Devizes.

We are now slowly getting familiar with life out on the canals and rivers, roaming free, stopping wherever and meandering our way along. Memories are flooding back and new rhythms and patterns are being adopted as our new boat ‘Cygnet’ is different in many ways to our little old Badger the Narrowboat that we were living on for 18 months.

With different swing bridges to figure out along the Kennet & Avon and different moorings to find.

Wild mooring is a little new to us as you have to moor a little away from a wild bank and lay a plank to get on and off. And here’s me thinking that it was only pirates that made you walk the plank.

But we soon got into it and learned to love the wildness of it all.

Our first section to traverse is the Kennet & Avon canal which meets the mighty River Thames at Reading. This is a 51 mile trip with 55 locks to navigate through, which is a lot of cranking for my wife Milly C.

Image Source - canalplan.uk

We found the Kennet & Avon ( or the K & A as it’s colloquially known) to be stunningly beautiful, wild and a little sadly in need of a bit of repair here and there. Some of the locks were incredibly difficult to operate and on more than one occasion we needed assistance to open some lock gates. But the views were just WOW 🤩!

We also stayed in a few villages which were very cool and had good moormore reminiscent of the canal moorings we had used before.

It’s hard not to smile going to sleep and waking up in some of these places. Newbury in particular was very cool.

There’s something really quite cool about rocking up in these small towns and villages in your own floating home. Doing some shopping, having a beer, staying the night and then chugging off the next morning. We love it.

And as this particular section of the canal network is totally new to us we never quite know whats coming up next when we pass under the next bridge or round the next bend.

As I me tioned earlier there’s 55 locks on this section of canal we need to navigate which is sometimes very tiring work for Camille and I am often accused of being cruel making her do them, but she loves them and has become quite knowledgeable about it.

So if it has been a tough section we reward ourselves with a visit to one of the many English country pubs near the canal for feed and beers.

And suddenly all is right with the world 😍

As we continued on our journey we were watched by the Empire

Passed beautiful little water side homes…

Got into a convoy

Encountered heavy machinery floating and dredging the canals…

And then rallied some troops to help us through the last locks and give Milly C a rest.

A friend of mine ‘Tim’ ( on the right) who also lives on a narrowboat met up with us and brought his mate Simon to help out.

They got us through the last of the locks as we hit the shopping centre called ‘The Oracle’ in Reading.

This was a very surreal experience chugging through a shopping mall on our canal boat, music playing, shoppers shopping, people drinking, eating ,waving and saying hello.

I kinda liked it. I actually liked it alot.

And then all too quickly we were chugging away from the shoppers towards the last lock

And then

The River Thames

Felt so good. Such a wide space of water like we’ve never taken the Narrowboat on. The feeling of being on the Thames, the actual River Thames on our own tiny Narrowboat was amazing.

And in no time we found a perfect mooring in the city centre by the bridge.

A very satisfying end to the first section of our new journeys. Superb!

1. We be Cruising Down the Kennet & Avon to the River Thames