Something I have wanted to do for a long time, spend some time on a narrow boat, cruising the canal system and enjoying the peace and tranquillity that image conjures.. So, My better half Helen decided to treat me to a surprise holiday, a mid week break on a Shire Cruisers narrow boat. Our children, now grown up and at University decided that they would come and join us for a couple of days so we set about planning the logistics of all getting to the departure point and finding a suitable point for them to depart half way through the week.

Thinking we had it all planned until there was an issue with a lock meaning our departure point moved from Sowerby Bridge to Brighouse, the team at Shire Cruisers made it all as painless as possible and with a little more logistics planning, we were soon on our way.

Collection day went well, we had to bring two cars due to other logistical challenges but the team managed to safely provide us parking and helped us onboard, including our well travelled 7 year old Guinea Pig!
As part of the handover we were helped through the first couple of locks and then we were on our own and on our way.

The children (OK young adults) were keen to take charge of the locks, I was at the tiller and Helen took to the Galley, making sure the crew were well catered for and our floating home for the week was ship shape.
It was quite the adventure, we managed to navigate swiftly through the locks, on and off the river and even managed a trip to the supermarket before finally finding our first stop for the holiday.

Its fair to say we covered a lot of ground, maximising our time onboard and enjoying the scenery as it slowly passed by, we also had a few interesting lock experiences, one set of gates that wouldn’t open (Or close) due to a glut of weeds and another where we managed to get wedged into a lock with another family, again as a result of a lock gate not fully opening. You can't have an adventure without some added excitement though can you… And in the end we made it through, the only down side was we were too late getting to our planned pub stopover for a pub tea, so had to go into the local town in search of food, ending up at an Indian restaurant which I have to say was great food, though they weren’t licenced, so before I’d even managed to sit down at our table, I was back out to the local supermarket for a bottle of much needed wine!

Once the children decided to head home, I was then in charge of locks and Helen took control of the tiller.. I came to realise very quickly that the children had been very efficient and being two of them, made it look easy… It was hard work and as we were now coming up the locks, I also had extra roping duties to contend with.

The trip was accompanied by amazing weather which really did make the experience memorable, glorious sunshine, peace and tranquillity, and a pace of life so different than my every day, forcing me to slow down, put the technology aside and enjoy the countryside.

We all had a great time and Shire Cruisers really made the experience one to remember.


Terry, Helen, Emily and Jax.

Watch Terry's amazing...
video