My narrow escape (Home)

As I get out of the marina too rarely and am not a huge fan of Christmas celebrations anyway, I decided to go on a little Christmas cruise with my friend Carsten from Germany, who is similarly minded and came over upon the promise of good food and hot drinks on the boat. We set off from the marina near Southall down to Bulls Bridge and turned left in the direction of Brentford. Quite soon we reached Three Bridges, which is a little canal attraction. The canal goes under a road, but under the canal there is a deep railway cutting. Three Bridges - road, canal, railway The Hanwell lock flight down to the river Brent is in quite a nice setting, but the locks are not in a good shape. They are deep, hence the gates are big and hard to handle. At each lock at least one paddle was broken. On top of that the canal had a lot of rubbish in it and also lots of branches from cut back trees. All this stuff got stuck in the locks everywhere. We shared most of the locks with a single-hander...

As my long canal journey of almost four months has come to an end it's time to reflect a bit and - I admit it - boast of a few stats. It was epic. It was slow. It was exciting and exhausting. From May to September 2017 I travelled all the way from London to Liverpool and back at about 3mph on a good day. I saw more of England in that time than in all my 13 years of living in the UK before. First for some highlights. My top three favourite canals I travelled on 19 different canals (see more details below). It is hard to say which are my favourites as every canal has its own character and special features.But I think my top three are: No 1. Macclesfield Canal This was my absolute top favourite, because of the amazing countryside around. The Macc runs right alongside the Peak District and there are views of the hills throughout. Another amazing feature of the Macc are the huge old industrial mills in the middle of nowhere. It is also a pleasant canal to cruise as it only ha...