The Four Counties Ring

In 2014, we spent ten days on the canals of Britain. I consider myself to be well travelled and have had quite a few adventures in my time, but nothing prepared me for almost two weeks on a floating object in the middle of rural Shropshire.

We had wanted to do the Llangollen Canal, which is supposed to be absolutely stunning – part of it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2009 – but the Canal & River Trust shut part of the waterway following the storms which had hit the UK that March so we decided to do the Four Counties Ring instead. The Four Counties Ring traverses parts of five canals and runs through the counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and the West Midlands; it is 109 miles long (which feels much longer when you’re going at 4mph), has 94 locks and includes a 2,675 metre tunnel called Harecastle Tunnel. At Stoke-on-Trent, we took a small detour to do the Caldon Canal, 18 miles of beautiful Staffordshire countryside, which was well worth the diversion.

We picked up our gorgeous narrowboat – Serenissima – from Venetian Hire Boats in Cheshire and, after a quick induction, were on our way. Things did not get off to a great start at the first lock. Having spent a good few minutes raising the paddle, I let go of the lock key and almost lost my hand. Apparently when you raise a paddle, the pawl must be engaged to prevent the paddle from dropping – not something I knew. As the gentlemen who kindly saved my hand (my body seemed incapable of moving so I stood there motionless with the lock key repeatedly hitting my hand until he yanked me away from the lock) told me at the time, “you never make that mistake more than once”. He was right! I spent the rest of the trip barely able to use my right hand, which within minutes of my accident was already black and blue. Unfortunately this was not my only incident; by the time we left the boat ten days later, there wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t cut or bruised, and I also managed to smash the screen of my mobile – no-one had warned me that canal boating was a contact sport.

I didn’t fare much better trying to steer. My poor husband did most of the driving as I couldn’t be trusted to take control for even a minute – I kept veering from one bank to the other, crashing into anything within a 100-metre radius of our vessel. I took my life in my hands every time he had to go to the bathroom…

I had planned to spend a lot of time reading but I ended up reading less than I do at home. When I wasn’t doing locks, cooking, making drinks (I’ve never consumed so much tea in my life), I sat with my  husband as he expertly navigated through the water.

Cleanliness and fashion considerations go out the window when you’re cruising the canals (or canaling as we started to call it) . No-one cares what you look like and, as I discovered on Day 1, if you wash you’re only going to get dirty again five minutes later. Showering was an every other day activity (at most!), trying to wash (let alone condition) your hair was a nightmare and there certainly wasn't enough room to apply moisturiser or make-up. My staple outfit was a hat (to conceal the horrors underneath), old muddy clothes (which got muddier by the minute), Ugg boots and, when it rained, my very trusty mac-in-a-sac.