This weekend Caroline and I joined her brother for his 25th birthday party. He hired a canal boat from a nearby town, to drive it to Chester for the party, then drive it back again after.
We helped him drive on Saturday. It was more fun than I expected. It’s hardly a method of transport. Walking is faster! I’m not particularly interested in boats or water, but it was a relaxing trip (mostly). The relaxation was broken up by locks and crashes.
The trip went mostly smoothly. We were getting the hang of the locks until we got in to Chester town and were confronted with 4 locks all in a row. Figuring put what locks to open and where to put the water was a challenge. We managed to get down, though, and given how late it was by then we didn’t keep any other canal boats waiting.
Caroline’s parents greeted us with a barbeque and we enjoyed a sleepy party after a hard day’s graft!