Hello and good morning and welcome to the secret loch,
Yes.
somewhere in Highland Scotland.
Gorgeous.
Last week we talked about hiring a narrowboat for the first time
and we,
we shared some of our wisdom,
some of the good some of it not so good.
some of it useless.
But another question we get asked a lot
is from people who want to hire a narrowboat,
but they're not sure where abouts to go.
It's a very common question isn't it?
Very common.
and it's difficult to answer because we all like different things.
You do.
Yeah, I like licking chocolate off digestive biscuits and
Shaun likes licking foreign men
[Laughing loudly]
You can't say that!
[Laughing]
So,
so in this vlog we're gonna try and give you,
[Laughing]
we're gonna try and give you
our top five favourite places in the countryside,
because we're gonna do a separate vlog next week about our top five favourite city places,
Yeah.
because some people want peace and quiet
and some people like the hustle and bustle of the city.
So we're going to give you our top five favourites,
now I say, I kind of put the emphasis on our,
because
whatever we do we're always going to get somebody saying,
Oh that's not a nice place.
You missed this,
you missed that, you're blocked!
You didn't say that.
[Laughing]
We always, every single, whatever we say every single week we get it
and I'll tell you what,
if YouTube did
There's hundreds of your blocked [Laughs]
If YouTube didn't ring me up and tell me off,
I would literally drop my pants and boff at the camera.
Boff? [Laughs] What's boff?
It's like bottom burp isn't it.
Bottom burp?
Boff?
But I'm not allowed to do that.
So yeah this is our top five favourite places,
now we've traveled over 2,000 miles of the UK's waterways over the last 20 years.
So we've seen quite a bit
Yes we have.
and if you've ever been on a walk in the countryside, you've probably seen quite a bit of me,
but we'll come on to that later.
Quite a lot of him.
So here are our top five places to visit if you want a bit of peace and quiet.
[Music playing]
Number five,
Five.
is the Lancaster Canal.
Now the Lancaster Canal's got a very holiday feel about it.
Yeah, it it felt like we were on holiday.
You'll notice there's a lot of caravan parks and hire cruisers,
I nearly said plastic boats, but that's boatist isn't it?
Boatist?
You're not allowed to say that anymore,
glass reinforced concrete or whatever they're called.
Conrete? [Laughs]
It has got a very holiday feel to it
and you don't have to do the Ribble Link to do the Lancaster Canal.
No you don't.
There's a lot of hire boat companies on the Lancaster Canal itself.
Now the reason it's good for first-time boaters is because,
apart from the Glasson Branch, which you can't do if you're a higher boater anyway.
There's just over 40 miles of lock-free cruising.
[Shaun] It's gorgeous and relaxing.
It is very nice, it's a little bit different in feel to the English canals in general,
Yeah.
but it is a lovely starter holiday if you're thinking about a narrowboat holiday.
So, I mean you start at the south you're kind of heading north
and the first town you'll come to is Garstang,
[Shaun] Beautiful. [Colin] Lovely little town,
you can moor right in the town centre,
there's some shops and supermarkets and pubs.
[Shaun] Lovely pub right on the canal side.
it is really nice, lots of places to explore.
From there you go up towards the Glasson Branch, which is what we were talking about,
there are locks down to Glasson Dock, which I don't think you're allowed to go down in a hire boat,
most hire boats won't allow that.
But it's only a couple of miles so you could walk down there,
visit the Smoke House, lovely little shop at the bottom
and take in the views of Morecambe Bay.
carrying on from uh from Glasson, you go up towards Lancaster,
the city which is the canal is named after.
It is, you wouldn't have thought so would you?
No.
[Laughs]
Lancaster Canal.
Now it can get a bit noisy on the moorings in Lancaster city centre,
so we generally moor about a mile before or after and walk back into town,
because there's a lot of student flats and pubs and that right by the side of the canal.
It's nice place.
It is a lovely place to explore.
As soon as you come out of Lancaster you've got the Lune Aqueduct,
which is beautiful it's one of my favourite aqueducts.
[Shaun] If you've got a drone, take it up and have a look.
Designed by John Rennie
and his successor, Gary Gaviscon.
[Laughs]
that's not true.
No [Laughs]
that's not true,
That's not true.
before you start writing in and some of you will.
Yeah you will.
From there you go on to Hest Bank which is lovely,
because it's only a few minutes walk down to, I say beach,
it's a bit rocky
[Shaun] Yeah.
and it's like, it's Morecambe Bay, so it's when the tide's out, it's just,
It goes out for miles.
It does, don't go walking out there that can be dangerous,
but there's some lovely views to be had.
From there, carrying on up the canal you come to Canforth,
again lovely shops, railway station there.
What was that film?
Errrr,
Alien?
Alien!
No! and I can't remember. [Laughs]
[Laughs]
The one with the clock in the railway station,
you'll tell us anyway, write it in the comments.
Yes.
And from there you go towards the end of the canal to Tewitfield, which is the end of the line.
It used to go further up to Kendall about 14 miles,
but when the M6 came along, they built another road to go over the M6
and that blocked the canal.
Completely.
Now you can still walk from Tewitfield up to Kendall
it's about 14 miles.
[Shaun] It's called the Northern Reaches.
[Colin] so it is a long walk,
but you can still see a lot of the old locks and the roots of the canal as you go.
[Shaun] There's still water in it.
Overall it is a really nice canal,
not a lot of locks, if you don't go down the Glasson Branch there's no locks.
one swing bridge,
[Shaun] Oh yes.
[Colin] which is alright isn't it.
[Shaun] Yes it's all right that one.
[Colin] which serves a house, that's alright isn't it, a houses its own swing bridge.
I'd like that.
but it's got a lovely feel to it, it's a nice relaxing canal.
it doesn't get too busy, it is busy in season,
but because boats have to come over the Rubble Link,
you don't get mass influxes of narrowboats.
No you don't.
You don't you tend to get more cruiser boats than narrowboats, especially in the summer.
Number four,
is the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
Now this is a bit weird, because the Leeds and Liverpool is over 120 miles long,
[Laughs] Yeah.
which you can't do on like a week's canal holiday
and there's some bits that you really wouldn't want to do on a holiday.
Now most of the hire boats that we're going to be talking about here are based at Skipton,
which is a very good starting point for a narrowboat holiday.
Now if you go east from Skipton, you're taking a more industrial historical route,
which takes you down through Keithley, towards Bingley, the Bingley Five Fise
and into Salltaire where Salts Mill is.
Now you can go from there in a few days down to Leeds and you could actually go into Leeds City Center.
Yeah it's a great experience.
It's very different than going west,
if you go west from Skipton it's very very rural.
You go out past Gargrave, up towards Greenberfield
to Foulridge Tunnel and into Lancashire.
Going west is much more scenic and it is beautiful,
there's little villages like East Marton, where you've got the double bridge
and the Curly Wurlies.
[Shaun] Where you can moor and if you lucky, you'll be the only boat there and there's not a soul about.
It is nice, if you like the rolling hills of Yorkshire
and just unspoiled beautiful countryside,
then go west from Skipton.
Go east down the Aire valley
and down through the Bingley Five Rise Locks into Saltaire.
[Shaun] And that's an experience.
I mean if you've got a two week holiday,
you could go down to Bingley and Saltaire,
turn around and then go up to Greenberfield
and turn around at Foulridge and come bak.
There are a lot of locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal
and I think there's even more swing bridges.
[Shaun] I think they're every three yards.
[Laughs]
So it's hard work and it's good if you've got a crew of two, three, four people,
that makes it a little bit easier.
If it's just two of you and it's your first time, it can get a bit tiring.
Oh yeah, you will be tired.
The views are well worth it.
Number three
and I never thought I would say that this is one of our favourite canals.
it's the South Oxford Canal
[Shaun] Yes it's lovely.
Now the Oxford is split into two parts, the north and the south
and they split between Braunston and Napton.
So we're talking about the South Oxford
which runs from Napton Junction down to Duke's Cut at Oxford
and it really is beautiful.
Now we started our journey at Napton on the Hill
and we spent actually quite a few weeks there because it was during the first lockdown of Covid
[Shaun] Oh god yes.
[Colin] back in march April 2020.
We didn't see a soul for weeks.
Yeah we spent about six weeks there.
Now Napton on the Hill is lovely,
it's just a hill,
it literally is a hill with a windmill and a tiny little village on it.
[Shaun] And the canal goes round it.
It really does go round the hill and we moored at the bottom of the hill
and the little post office shop in the village was like our oasis
for bread and milk during lockdown wasn't it.
It was the only place we could go.
[Laughs]
It's lovely there, you carry on up the Napton Flight of locks to Marston Doles
and that's where we spent the second half of lockdown.
It is yes.
We spent about six weeks there, it was just beautiful, the weather was gorgeous
and we were just like laid out sunbathing,
[Shaun] Nothing on.
[Colin] Yeah [Laughs] with nothing on.
[Shaun] Because there were nobody about.
[Colin] There was nobody about and that's the summit of the South Oxford Canal
and it's about 12 miles where there's no locks at all.
Then you start coming down the locks and descending towards Oxford,
there's also the lot where we, where you were the hero
and saved the deer.
Oh yes it was yes, I pulled the deer out of the lock with its horns.
[Colin] Horns?
Horns.
Tusks
Tusks? [Laughs]
It's not a Walrus [Laughs]
Antlers.
Antlers, that's the one.
[Laughs]
Overall it is lovely,
there's mile after mile of unspoilt canal and countryside.
And lovely towns.
And lovely towns
and because the canal was mostly built around the lay of the land,
there's not a lot of locks.
There are some locks, but from the top of Marston Doles
down to Dukes Cut, there's not that many locks
and there's a nice combination of canal,
there's little bits of river coming in,
so just be careful of that if you're not very experienced on the water.
But there's plenty of instruction
and if you can get right down to Oxford it makes a beautiful week or two.
Number two,
again is a surprise, it's somewhere where I would never
have actually put in the top five up until last year
and that is the River Weaver.
Now again some hire companies might not allow you down the Anderton boat lift onto the river,
so check before you travel.
I've always wanted to say that.
Check before you travel.
[Laughs]
It was a lovely surprise for us.
It does mean you have to go down the Anderton Boat Lift,
which is an experience in itself.
You can make a day of that it is absolutely amazing,
make sure you take your camera or video camera.
[Shaun] And if you go downstream you can have a nice little cruise, a nice gin cruise.
Which we'll come to in a second.
As you come out of the boat lift, turn left and you go to Northwich,
which is the biggest town on the river and you can go further up towards Winsford.
It's a good point to, go up have a walk round have a walk around the Flash
and turn around and come back.
Northwich is great if you fancy a restaurant
or need to stock up on food at the supermarkets.
But the nicest part of the river is if you turn right coming out of the boat lift,
it's a bit industrial for about a mile,
[Shaun] yeah not not far.
[Colin] but then it's beautiful, couple of swing bridges
and you reach Dutton's Lock.
[Shaun] Ohhh lovely down there.
[Colin] It is beautiful.
There's a nature reserve just after the lock
and then it's just open countryside, it's absolutely gorgeous.
You go under this huge viaduct designed by George Stevenson
[Shaun] Yes, the Rocket man himself.
[Colin] Rocket man.
Carry on you get to Devil's Garden, which is one of our favourite moorings,
Watch out for the cows.
[Laughs]
The cows in the field,
some friends of ours actually had a window broke didn't they?
[Shaun] Yeah.
[Colin] by a cow reversing into the window.
The cow's bottom went in the window.
Just behind Devil's Garden is Warburton Wood,
which is beautiful, it's very hilly
and absolutely carpeted in bluebells during the late spring,
but it's a lovely walk.
Go from there and it's just open countryside again, you get to Sutton Weaver
where there's that absolutely grand swing bridge
that Gorgeous George swung for us.
[Shaun] He did.
I never thought I'd be saying that on a vlog either,
Gorgeous George.
Gorgeous George swung for us.
[Laughs]
Not like that.
I say.
[Laughs]
And right next to Sutton Weaver Swing Bridge is Steamship Danny,
[Shaun] The Daniel Adamson.
[Colin] which we had a trip on and had a little explore around
and you can take a trip on there too, we'll leave a link in the video description
if you want to see more about the Danny.
From there you get towards the end of the cruising on the River Weaver
and you come to the Manchester Ship Canal.
Now you definitely won't be allowed on the Ship Canal on a hire boat.
[Laughs] No you won't.
But there is a mooring at the end by the lock and you can moor up and you can get off
and you've got gorgeous views across the Manchester Ship Canal
and out towards the River Mersey.
It is a brilliant, brilliant river
and you could easily spend a whole week on there,
Oh easy
from mooring to mooring.
I could spend a month on there.
Oh easily yeah.
But make sure with your hire boat company first
that you're allowed down the lift and onto the river,
because if it rains, obviously the flow of the river can increase,
so you need to be confident in your boat handling
if you're going to be taking it down onto the river.
So,
what's our number one?
Oh it's obvious.
If you know us you know what we're about to say.
It is the Peak Forest Canal.
[Shaun] Beautiful.
Not everybody will agree with us.
[Shaun] No they won't.
We just feel at home on the Peak Forest Canal
and it's got everything.
Now it's split into two parts, the upper and the lower
and the upper part is our favourite.
But if you are going to start a journey
or if you're coming up the Macclesfield Canal to do it that way
it's worth going down Marple Locks just to see
The aqueduct.
[Colin] The aqueduct, Marple Aqueduct
and the huge Marple Viaduct which is right next to it
and it's even higher than the aqueduct.
And if you time it right there's a steam train
[Colin] Yeah, usually on a Saturday about lunchtime.
Now the aqueduct itself, you can cruise over on the boat,
you can walk over it if you want to walk down the locks.
Or you can walk down and underneath it if you wanted to.
If you want to do Marple Locks, there's 16 of them,
it's a half day job.
If you're doing it in season
there's usually some Canal and River Trust volunteers about to give you a hand.
Now just be careful if you do the locks, because again when it's busy in high season,
the pounds between the locks can empty
Yeah you can ground.
and you can find yourself stuck, so it's always good
to have the help of the Canal and River Trust volunteers
if you're going up or down the locks.
Marple itself is lovely there's a couple of supermarkets there's lots of little shops
and cafes, there's an independent cinema, which is well worth the visit
Lovely little town
and services at the top of the locks if you need water
or if you need to empty your toilet if you've got one of those.
On from Marple, you go onto the Upper Peak Forest Canal,
which is our favourite.
Swizzles
Yeah.
New mills is our favourite town
and it's got everything, it's it's like a lovely little chocolate box northern town
and we've got some good friends there.
We have got some good friends there.
There's, I mean, unlimited walks.
Go and visit Torrs Hydro, which is the Reverse Archimedes Screw
which powers some of the town.
You've got a huge park,
you've got the Swizzles Sweet Factory, which I'm still barred from.
He is.
For some reason.
[Shaun] Thrown out.
[Colin] Don't know why.
and there's a lovely marina there,
go and see Suzie if you need some water or some diesel or coal,
or just fancy an ice cream
and she'll keep you there chatting for three hours.
[Shaun] She will.
[Laughs]
From there you can go down to Whaley Bridge,
again some lovely little shops, a lovely cafe only two minutes walk
[Shaun] and a great chippy.
[Colin] from Whaley Bridge Basin
and this service is there too.
You could even walk up, it's only a few minutes walk to Toddbrook Reservoir,
where you can see the dam that almost burst a few years ago
and you can see how they're getting on with the repairs of that.
If you go the other way
from the junction there's a huge Tesco, so you can get some shopping in
and you can go around to Bugsworth Basin.
Loads of history, it used to be the biggest inland port in Britain
believe it or not, right in the middle of the Peak District.
Our favourite moorings on the Upper Peak Forest Canal
are at Furness Vale just before the swing bridge, Carr Swing Bridge
and the views from there across the valley are just absolutely beautiful
and it's where we scattered Dillon's ashes,
[Shaun] Yeah.
so go and say hello to Dillon if you're more there.
Awwww Dillon.
Our other favourite place is a place called, Little Wood End,
which is just between a bridge and a lift bridge
and there's a stretch of Armco which you can moor there and again the views across the valley
are just absolutely beautiful.
[Shaun] And it's a tarmac towpath.
[Colin] It is.
Wherever you moor on the Peak Forest Canal, there's hundreds of miles of paths and tracks
and walks that take you up towards Kinder Scout and Chinley.
Chinley!
I still think that's funny now.
So you don't just have to do the canal by boat,
get your walking shoes on and get yourself off.
Up into the hills.
I don't mean get yourself off like that.
Oh I say, you can't say that.
[Music playing]
So they are our top five places to visit
[Whispers] Five.
if you're hiring a narrowboat for the first time.
Now it might be that you know a place that you love that we haven't talked about,
if you have put it in the comments, so other people can discover it too.
Yeah, before we delete it.
[Laughig] We're not gonna. . .
No we won't.
You've got to stop, we don't really block everybody, honestly.
[Laughs]
Oh my word.
Or we might have just put you off the idea of narrowboating altogether
and you might end up booking a cruise seeing Jane McDonald.
Oooh that'll be, that'd be thrilling.
Did we tell you about the time she [Beeeep] in our welldeck.
No you can't say that.
[Laughs]
Anyway we hope you've enjoyed this vlog
and maybe it's inspired you on some places to go
and explore and visit on your first narrowboat holiday.
Yeah.
Next time we're going to be talking about city breaks
and the hustle and bustle places to visit by narrowboat.
Hustle and bustle. Hustle and bustle.
We hope you join us for that.
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Happy exploring, go and google all the places now
Yes and get it booked.
I'm gonna take my top off and have a little bit of a skinny dip.
Ooooh!
See you next week, bye bye
Ta-ra.
[Spashing water]
It's Freeeeeezing!
[Music playing]