the wife’s birthday is coming up in a bit and she’s been on about wanting to go on a canal boat so I thought id do something about it.

I’ve looked at a few things but they all seem to be booked up, often 12 months in advance.

does anyone know of any where that might have a shorter waiting list?

thanks

The pub round the corner from us do boat trips

http://www.ringobellsmarple.co.uk/

Not been on one yet but they;re doing a midweek trip next week I quite fancy, 1pm minibus to Macc then a cruise back up to Marple. If the weather’s decent it will be nice, take the big camera and get snapping and so on

http://www.thebellmarple.co.uk/

The food in the pub is really nice too, you could treat her to a pub meal after. It’s VERY close to Emmy’s excellent B&B if you REALLY want to spoil her

http://www.lilybankfarmcottage.co.uk/

Are you looking to hire a barge or go on a cruise type thing?

Location?

K&A in to Bath, then a nice hotel…..

Hebden bridge? and you can always fit in a cheeky ride or two!

Cheshire Ring. It was ace

If it’s just a short trip you’re after, there’s a boat goes from Bollington on the Cheshire Ring canal, heads north to Poynton and back – about 3 hours or so.

The best thing is it’s a floating restaurant with massive portions of good and tasty home-made grub, it’s licenced and they’re really nice people too. Takes up to 12 people, I think.

I’ll dig out a link if you’re interested?

Welsh Frankton to Llangollen & back is both beautiful & contains a fair few engineering marvels.

cheers for the suggestions guys, location isn’t an issue as we can just stay over if its a bit of a drive.

original plan was to hire one for a couple of nights but I think it might just have to be a day trip.

I can find boats available on the Brecon Abergavenny canal through http://www.redlineboats.co.uk.

It’s only a short strectch of canal, but it is very beautiful. I spent a whole week on it. Lots of stops and trips ashore.

HTH
SB

brilliant, I’ll check that out this eve, thanks

catflees – Member
Are you looking to hire a barge or go on a cruise type thing?

are you going to be carrying goods? or do you mean a narrowboat?

to the OP
try http://www.alvechurch.com/ then you can completely put her off by doing the 58 locks from worcester to tardibigge, it’ll only take about 5 hours, unless it’s busy, fun though

oooh alvechurch, that’s a blast from the past.

I should point out that when I was younger my dad was a canal nerd so I’ve chugged down most of england’s waterways but not for 20ish years.

I know a lot of canals have reopened in this time so I’m just after general pointers.

http://www.norburywharfltd.co.uk/narrowboat_hire.htm

This place was on one of my old canal side cycle routes. You can hire the ‘narrow boat’ (thanks Rocketdog) for the day, the route has very little in the way locks, it’s not a very pretty route though.

sounds pretty much ideal. thanks

We did the LLangolan canal in April this year with Marine Cruises.
It was my first time i thought it was fantastic. Two big Aquaducts long tunnels and some great pubs to stop at.

I remember my dad just using it as an excuse for a massive piss up and making me do all the locks.

I tried the Llangolan but everything seemed booked, I’ll have to look again

have a look on ebay

plan your route carefully, lock 30 mins, 3mph downhill top speed …..

Where are you and how far do you want to travel. We normally book through hireboats2go, they have never let us down.

We have also hired day boats and some of the provides list them – just don’t expect weekends as these book up quickly.

we’re in Sheffield but I’ll happily drive where ever is needed.

mid week is also probably best so its not an issue.