Oxford cruise - Episode 2

I had thought that living on a narrowboat was "laid back" but, compared to cruising it is really hectic.

Cruising on a narrowboat gets you away from it all like nothing else I know. On the one hand, even though you are travelling at walking pace you need to concentrate on steering because the turns are tight and the banks are never far away.







On the other hand you are in open countryside, often with fields that run down to the canal without a fence or hedge. This brings farm animals very close, and you are all the time surrounded by birdsong, and ducks. At this time of the year there are mothers with clutches of tiny puff-balls of ducklings.

Even when you come to a mooring place - for example near a bridge with a pub, or a marina, you are still shielded from what used to be the real world - your world is bounded by the towpath.

So when I stepped up onto the street in Banbury the cars seemed like odd creatures - what are they for? why are they hurrying? where are they going?

While cruising you hardly ever see a car. The only regular transport machine is the train as the railway lines were often built close to the canals.

The village of Cropredy












Banbury Cross and a Squirrel

Oxford cruise - Episode 1

Leopard has started her first 2009 cruise - down the Oxford canal to Oxford and, possibly, up the Thames westwards to Lechlade. It depends on our humour at the time.

The only time constraint is that I want to be back in Braunston for the historic boat rally on 27 June.



The first picture shows us topping up with diesel at Braunston before leaving (on Sunday 10 May).







This is our first view of open countryside after Braunston.







And a view of a busy section of the canal.







Cows enjoying the sunshine. Do cows enjoy? It's not for nothing that "bovine" means what it does!









I have been surprised by the numbers of sheep and lambs in the fields. Coming from Ireland I had an image of the UK having a huge population and very little open countryside. But there seems to be at least as much agriculture as in Ireland.





And this is where we stopped for our first night - out in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually it was just after bridge 123 on the Oxford canal.

Wildlife and unrelated stuff

Here are some recent photos, in chronological order, for want of a better format.



First is Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey. It has a wonderful moate (I think there should be an 'e'). I drove around the north Anglesey coast to pass the time one evening and stopped to eat in Beaumaris. There was a wonderful contrast between the old-world castle - designed and built for military use, and the sinister modern bulk of Wilfa nuclear power station even though it was built for peaceful use.






These wild deer were in my brother's garden.






The rest of the pictures come from Stoke Bruerne on the Grand Union Canal, where there is a very interesting museum about the canals. What's really nice is that the whole area is part of the museum. You are given an electronic gadget from which you can hear a description of the items and places as you walk around.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the blossom from this tree created a carpet on the ground and still left plenty for the tree itself.








I was amazed to discover that back in the day people had built a scales that could weigh a whole narrowboat. This device was not used at Stoke Bruerne and now sits in a disused lock. At one time there were a pair of locks to speed up the boat traffic.







This wire fox was one of a number of wire sculptures on the woodland walk.









Sorry, museum, but best of all at Stoke Bruerne were the tiny ducklings. One mother seemed to have about 12. They scooted around so swiftly that they looked like specks of dust blowing in a shaft of sunlight.