Once I had my stove installed and was
able to maintain a warm boat, I left
Middlewich, traveling south along the
Trent & Mersey.
Being high up among rolling
countryside, was exactly the type of
scenery I'd been looking forward to.
Now was the time to master operating locks,
with nobody around to see. Along this
stretch they were all single width locks,
of various depths. When single-handed a
lot more effort and time is required, to
navigate through a lock. Instead of just
being able to step off and deal with a
lock, I need to moor up before and after
each one. Ahead of me was Harecastle
Tunnel which is north of Stoke-on-Trent.
You need to agree a time of travel 48
hours beforehand and I booked mine for
8:30 a.m. 72 hours ahead, loads of time
or so I thought.
{Noise of strong wind}
The next day in swept Storm Doris, it was
described as a weather bomb.
I eagerly watched the news and weather
reports and knew I could get 4 locks
under my belt, early in the morning,
before it hit my location. Reports were
coming in that up to 94 mile an hour
winds were causing chaos, directly west
of me in North Wales. Doris was heading
right in my direction. With my empty
brand-new narrowboat sitting very high in
the water, the wind blew across the open
fields, hitting me side on. It was so
strong I couldn't move the boat away
from the canals edge, so I decided to
moor up and wait it out.
The next day I arrived at the north entrance of
Harecastle Tunnel. The one and a half mile
tunnel was once the longest canal tunnel
in Britain. It's only wide enough to
carry traffic in one direction, hence the
requirement for a Canal & River Trust
booking. A staff member needs to be at
each end of the tunnel, to control who
goes in. I was the only boat there so
had my safety briefing and off I went,
trying to show a confident face.
{Crashing noises}
Oh dear, not a good start!
{CRT Employee} Don't worry about it, it's not the worst I've seen and it's not the best I've seen.
In I went and it got cold and damp very
quickly. Having a headlight and a horn
are essential.
I had wired up my light and CRT kindly
lent me an air horn. The fires got to be out,
or very very low. Dogs and children inside, so Molly's
got to stay inside.
If I break down or if there's an engine problem
or diesel runs out,
I've got to give a long blast on the horn,
for every 30 seconds and then they will
reply with three short blasts.
To effectively acknowledge that
they've heard me. If I'm not out of the
tunnel within an hour and a half, then
they send their search teams in. That could
have been, I've had a panic attack or I've
hit my head on the roof, because it does get quite
low. It felt like I was traveling into
the centre of the earth, but eventually I
could see a very small light in the
distance.
Halfway through the tunnel, rusty coloured
mud and water gushed onto my stern, from
what looked like a stream pouring out of
the tunnels wall. I kept on going.
As I got closer to the south exit, the noise
of fans got really loud and then turned
off.
The exit door then swung open and I
could clearly see daylight. I had done it,
and all in 47 minutes. So that was
Harecastle Tunnel, a very very long tunnel,
speck of light in the distance, you could
just about see as you got about a third
of the way through. Lots of water coming
in on the sides, got very low at some
points, I thought it was going to hit the
roof of my boat. But all in all, nothing
to worry about. I then needed to stay put
for a few days, as the storm had caused
a tree to fall across the canal. Apart
from filming things like solar and
boiler installs, which will be in future
videos, I concentrated on getting back to
Nottingham, to fit Alice out. However I
clearly got the NOMAD bug, as within a
few weeks, I got bored and wanted to
travel again. So next time, we pick up my
adventure on the way to
Stratford-upon-Avon. Don't forget to
click Subscribe if you want to follow my
journey. See you next time.