I LOVE Mabe, Meandering with Mates and Mesmerizing Stone Circles

B-Rod and I often talked about how kind of funny and ridiculous narrow boating is. It’s transport that is slightly slower than walking pace, and you really don’t cover a lot of distance in the end.

We did an out and back route that took us on three different canal systems. Our one end point was Llangollen, and because we ended up having some extra time, went past Stoke-On-Trent (our drop off point) to cruise a bit of the Calden Canal for our other end point (I’ll explain that later)

We had the boat for 14 nights and stayed overnight in various locations.

We had a bit of paranoia about locking the key in the boat when we left it to wander on land and wondered what we would do and how long it would take people from Black Prince to get to us to give us a spare set of keys because we had left the base soooooo many days ago. Yet, in the span of two weeks each of our end points only covered a distance of about 82km. Realistically, if we had locked the key in the boat, we’d call and someone could probably get to us by car in about 20 min! 😆

So it was interesting to me that I dug it so much. At one point, near our mid-way mark, as we were drifting off to sleep, I said to B-Rod . . . “Is it weird that I love this so much?!”

Slow Down

As someone who for a very long time held the story that I was “behind” in life, met the societal conditioned benchmarks of “life success” later than others and was often overwhelmed in a western world that demands things NOW, transformation quickly or must “always have a goal to strive for and hurry hard to get there” mentality, I think the pace of narrow boating has been something I have always been craving.

You go in knowing that things will be slow, and yet other boaters, the nature of locks, and the ability of the boat and how to navigate it asks you to . . . . . s l o w . . . . . d o w n . . . . e v e n . . . . . m o r e.

I believe in the saying ‘the journey is more important than the destination,’ but slow travel on the narrow boat really forces you to truly experience this.

And so our days on the boat moved slowly, were fairly repetitive, but felt very fulfilling at the end of most days. Brian was often the driver and I would either chat with him in the back or sit up front. We spent our time taking in and appreciating the simplicity of nature and our surroundings.

We would also often call out two things to each other. The first call you could hear coming from our boat was “LOCK!!!!” (which meant one was coming up and to get ready! 😆)

The second thing we would often call out to each other was “”BABIES!!!!” because springtime on the canals has a lot of them!

Other animals of note included

And Then There Were Three

Because we ended up with a bigger boat this time with extra beds, we mentioned to different friends that they should join us. We knew it was very last minute, so didn’t really expect that we’d get company. But, as we started making our way back from Llangollen, we woke up one day to a message from our friend J-Rodg. While we were sleeping that night, she had boarded a flight and was on her way to London. She wanted to know what train station would be the easiest for us to meet her at to pick her up!

After some calculating, we found a spot that would take us all day to cruise to, but would be somewhat convenient for all, and we were now on an exciting mission to meet up with our friend!

It was fun to have J-Rodg along to share our boat space, introduce her to narrow boat livin’ and the ins and outs of all we had learned so far with driving, locks, mooring, and all the other boat terms we were now familiar with 😆

She brought some fun, but she also brought the sun, and the weather significantly improved with her arrival (or was it summer solstice that did that?! 🤷🏽‍♀️)

She helped us to slow down even more, and got us out to more walks into different towns to explore and cross things off her list.

Interestingly, near the beginning of our trip I had come across narrow boat “job pins” at a chandlery (shop selling boat supplies). I knew which pin was mine, but couldn’t decide on just one for B-Rod, so I ended up with three. How convenient that there were now three people for three pins! 😆

Even though it was only for a few days, it was nice to have company. Thanks for the good times J-Rodg!!

The Hand

After J-Rodg left, we had a few days to get back to base, but we were ahead of schedule and would be back a couple of days early. When this same thing happened last year, we went a bit further down the Trent & Mersey canal to a town called Stone which we really liked. We decided to do the same thing this year and spend more time in Stone.

Except, that we saw on the app and heard from other boaters that the lock that we would need to go through to get to Stone was closed by police due to “suspicious activity” As we got closer to the lock, we started to hear stories that kept getting more and more elaborate as we got closer and closer.

Police were called for “suspicious activity” –> a fisherman caught a glove on his line —> there was a hand in the glove the fisherman had caught —-> the police were sweeping the area —–> a body was found in a boat

The lock wasn’t opening any time soon, so we went to a potteries museum that we had wanted to go to last year but had been closed (it was very cool), then got back on Mabel and took the turn just before the closed lock to go down the Caldon Canal which we had gone down last year.

The Caldon is often recommended as a good canal to start with and I’d agree. It was quieter than the canals we had just been on and it is a very pretty, nature-y one to do.

Because we ended up on this canal, our way back to drop off Mabel felt like a full circle moment. The last lock we went through before getting back to base was not only the first ever lock we did on our own last year after picking up our boat, but it is a lock in town that we had been standing by the day BEFORE getting Lucy (our last year boat). While looking at this lock back then, a boat had gone through, and when they learned that we’d be starting the next day for our first every narrow boat adventure, she taught us there and then by talking us through and having us operate the lock.

AND . . . when we finally made our way back to base, who was sitting there also waiting to be dropped off?! . . . . . . . LUCY!!!!

Thanks for the good times Mabel! You are a good girl!

And remember “the hand” that prevented us from heading over to Stone? We learned from the guys at base that the real story was that a fisherman had THOUGHT he saw a glove with a hand drop into the water while he was fishing. There WAS a sweep of the area, but no hand and no body were found.

AND . . . . because there were a few locks closed while we were there, Black Prince had a few boats that had to be abandoned by people, but needed to come back. The guy that was filling up Mabes with gas just before we left could hear/sense the excitement in our voices about our journey and said “Just throwing this out there . . . . do you have another week to spare? We currently have a boat in Manchester that needs to be brought back. Are you interested?” We were GUTTED! YES we wanted to move that boat, but B had to get back for work, and I also had some matters that needed me back in Canada soon-ish.

We cursed the missed opportunity, and left the same way we had last year . . . . knowing we could have happily spent more time on that boat in those canals!

Road Trip

At the very beginning of our trip when we stayed in Oxford, I had posted some pics online. Just as we were leaving to pick up Mabel, I got a message from an online friend telling me she lived very close to Oxford. It was too late for us to meet up, but I let her know I’d be in touch if we ended up in Oxford again. I had originally hoped to spend a bit more time in the UK after our boat trip, but for various reasons realized that wouldn’t happen this time. But . . . . I COULD prolong my departure for one more day!

So as B got ready to head back home, I got in touch with my friend to see if she was interested in a meet up. Not only was she interested, she proposed a full on ADVENTURE!! Of course she is my kind of peep!! 😃

J offered a lot of her time and day for me, volunteered to be the tour guide/shuttle driver and had so many creative ideas and suggestions of things to do and see. Top of the list, I wanted to see one of her fav places! So we made that plan and decided to see where the rest of the day took us.

Our first stop was White Horse Hill. Unfortunately, they had it blocked off so we couldn’t walk on the chalk outline of the horse (J had never seen it blocked off before and was a bit disappointed), but the view of the countryside was spectacular, especially with cloudless blue sky, and it was still cool knowing we were right there!

The next stop was the “main” event . . . . Avebury Stone Circle. J came prepared to give me the full English experience and we sat under a tree overlooking some of the rocks with a thermos of tea and biscuits, pondered what these trees had seen, chatted, laughed and simply enjoyed the magical energy of the place before taking our time to wander amongst the stones.

We also took a short break for lunch with a ghost!

As we did more wandering, I completely understood why this is one of her favourite places, wondered why it’s not as well know as Stonehenge (well . . . maybe it is?! Maybe I just didn’t know about it 🤷🏽‍♀️) and vowed that I would be back to spend more time here someday because there was more to see and it has such a good and interesting feel/energy to it.

From here, J pulled out the list she had made of ideas for us (have I mentioned how sweet she is!!) and we decided to drive to the city of Bath. We chatted along the way, and she pointed out things like different architecture styles, what certain towns we went through were well known for, and when we passed by Kate’s (of Will and Kate) university. She also answered my many questions such as how do I respond to the question/greeting “You alright?” or what do people really think of the royal family, or what IS the difference between the UK and Great Britain while also teaching me about ‘elevensies’ and the milk in tea debate 😆

And then we arrived in Bath.

My list of places to return to in the UK is growing because I need to spend more time here!

We ended our adventure with a Bath bun (again something I didn’t know about before 😋) in the oldest house in Bath.

Thank you sooooo much for this day J! With your playful, childlike, creative, adventurous energy . . . . . of course we were going to have a fun filled time together!!

As I sat on the train heading back to London to get ready for my flight the next day. I reflected and contemplated on the last few weeks. With a full heart, I watched the sun set over another amazing adventure with the opportunity to connect further to a country I truly enjoy being in, to the canals, to nature, to amazing peeps and to myself. See you again soon UK! 🇬🇧