The "Great" Harecastle Tunnel ....

... or so the guidebook calls it. I had done two difficult long tunnels on this journey already, Blisworth and Braunston. Both are "wide" tunnels, where two narrowboats can pass each other. I am not a big fan of long tunnels, so the prospect of going through an equally long tunnel (2675m), but with only one-way traffic, because it's so narrow was not something I was looking forward to. Unfortunately on the route up the Trent & Mersey, there is no other option.

The Harecastle tunnel was built by the already mentioned canal pioneer James Brindley in the very early days of canal building. It was built for one narrowboat only. As it takes about 45 min to go through, this led to major congestion quickly. A second tunnel was built by Thomas Telford (another famous canal engineer of the later days) completed in 1827. The new tunnel included a towpath (now removed), but also only space for one narrowboat. The original tunnel suffered from subsidence and was subsequently closed. Today all traffic goes only through the Telford tunnel.

The tunnel is manned by tunnel keepers at both ends. They put together convoys of boats to send through together. When all have emerged the other side (and they did assure us that they count how many go in and out), boats can enter in the other direction.

The main issue with this tunnel for us was that it is described as having an air draught of 5'9''. That is not enough for my roof racks. We measured 5'10'' on the side handrail. The tunnel is arched so height would be even less on the sides. We took all the plants down including bike and chimney etc., but the racks had to stay on. Obsessive worrying if we were going to fit through ensued.

However, when we arrived, the tunnel keeper said that we'd be fine, although he did recommend to fill up the water tank again (which we had just done!). We were all alone at the south portal so no convoy for us. Just little Willum in the big tunnel.

Not looking reassuring from here.

The entrance looks tiny.

The tunnel keeper gave us a safety instructions leaflet while we were waiting. Very reassuring ...

Tunnel instructions.

After waiting for about 30 minutes for the boats in the other direction to emerge, it was our turn. The tunnel portal has a height gauge before the entrance, which we cleared with a few inches to spare. One nice thing about this tunnnel is that it is also perfectly straight, so a pin prick of light is visible right from entering the tunnel.

Our turn now.

So far so good.

Into the darkness.

Bye bye world.

To handle the diesel fumes in the tunnel, it has powerful fans at the south portal that suck the air through. When boats enter the tunnel, big doors are closed behind them (slightly claustrophobic moment) and the fans kick in making a lot of noise. When we entered, as soon as the fans started, a dense fog started appearing in front of us obscuring the light at the end completely. The tunnel keeper had warned us that that would happen due to temperature differences of the air sucked through, but it was a very disorienting moment. Fortunately it only lasted seconds. Then I could see the light again and headed for it. Seeing a light makes it much easier to go straight. As mentioned before, being in a tunnel is very disorienting and I still tend to zigzag quite a lot.

As I knew that this tunnel had low headroom I was hell bent to stay in the middle to not get into trouble on the arched sides. The only position to achieve this was to stand right in the middle in front of the tiller the whole time. The tunnel gets subsequently lower as you progress. This is indicated by white paint on the arch every time the height changes. Over the first 15 minutes or so, it got lower .... and lower ... and lower, until I had to stand in a half-squat in order to not bump my head and still be in the middle. Still a couple of spare inches at the top, but I thought to myself if it continues to get lower at this rate, we'll be stuck long before the end. I put all my trust in the tunnel keeper at that point who had said that it'd be FINE. And yes he was right. I think the lowest point was somewhere around 1/3 in. Toward the end I could even stand up again. We emerged from the tunnel without touching the sides once, which was a first for me. Phew!

I never want to see this tunnel again though ...

Finally we are through.

The North Portal.

The water looks like carrot soup around the tunnel from the iron in the water.