Four Counties Ring

30th June 2007
Four Counties Ring - Clockwise
Whateley's wanderings

109 Miles
94 Locks
6 Days

Martin and Adam celebrated Adam's end of school with a boat trip round the Four Counties Ring. It should have been a nice trip but the summer of 2007 happened to them in the form of torrential rain - it was the week Sheffield flooded and nearly trapped the Captain in his car.

The pair were delayed on the Middlewich Branch when a landslide including a tree blocked their path. Notwithstanding this delay, they still managed the ring in six days. This pair are fast!

Mr Truth's lads week away

16th to 23rd June 2007
Black Country Ring clockwise, plus extras
Staffs & Worcs, Trent and Mersey, Coventry, Birmingham & Fazely and the BCN

132 Miles
113 Locks
7 Days

Mr Truth is a core and founding member of the "boat boys" and has a great enthusiasm for organising weeks or weekends away. Sometimes its fishing, sometimes boating and sometimes even riding bikes from one end of the country to the other.

Mr Truth organised this trip with a relay of crew members, whit himself being the only constant factor. He had good weather till he attempted to make a one day return journey from Kidderminster under a constant torrential downpour. After 12 hours of rain even his enthusiasm for boating started to fade. He, and two very energetic crew members attempted a record descent of the Titford flight, managing 23 mins top to bottom (the two of us managed 29 mins a month or so earlier). Is this a record?

Diversions included a trip to Tardebigge Top Lock and Kidderminster, having passed out of the BCN via The Delph.

On his return I heard the first murmurings of discontent about the smell in the loo. More about that in later posts.