I wish I could put more photos on my blog, there's so many, capturing so many different moments, it's hard to choose which pics to post to give you an idea of the fun we had on this trip!
Anyway, to carry on with the 'story'......................
We left Plockton on the morning of Monday 30th July, drove back to Inverness and flew back down to Luton where we were picking up another car. Though sorry to be saying goodbye to beautiful Scotland, we were also excited about the next stage of our trip as were about to 'cram in a bit of culture' before going 'ballistic on a boat' - more about the boat in a minute!
We drove off to Oxford and got there in pretty good time which was great, the only difficulty arose when we tried to locate the Randolph Hotel (part of Macdonald hotels) - it took us a while! We'd decided to stay at The Randolph as it features in Inspector Morse - our hero! don't you love him?! - in particular the episode called 'the wolvercote tongue' where the characters are actually staying at the hotel and lots of it is filmed in the hotel. In addition to this, the hotel actually has 'The Morse Bar' - need I say more?
Needless to say the hotel well and truly lived up to expectation! It was gooooorgeous! (my favourite word!) It was old-fashioned, stylish, had an air of glamour and was tastefully decorated with lovely rooms!
We were actually quite tired at this point and although we'd originally planned to shower, change and explore Oxford as much as possible in the short time that we had, we actually found ourselves chilling with drinks from room service for a while and only going out much later. We walked around for a bit and in the end we had a couple of drinks in the courtyard of a nice pub before going back to the hotel and spending some quality time in the famous 'Morse Bar'!
It's a nice little bar filled with photos of the much-loved Morse and his sidekick Lewis (who we also love!) We probably spent quite a while there soaking up the atmosphere and our drinks....!
Eventually we went up to our room for a room service meal in bed! (hey! whatever floats our boat! talking of boats.....more of that later.....!!)
an exuberant Linzi enjoying every minute in the Morse Bar!
an equally exuberant Justin!
We set off the next morning with the plan of visiting as many Cotswold villages as we could on the way to Stratford-upon-Avon! Talk about beautiful! I had no idea! We definitely want to revisit the Cotswolds properly in the future, it's a gorgeous area! I can't even remember all the names now, 'Stow on-the-Wold', 'Moreton-in-Marsh', 'Shipston on Stour' and 'Bourton-on-the-Water' are the main ones which spring to mind! Bourton-on-the-Water was our favourite and we walked around, sat by the river with warm sausage rolls from the little bakery, checked out the Dial House Hotel where we'd treated Dad & Mum to a couple of nights for Dad's 70th birthday (and very nice it looked too!) and generally soaked up the atmosphere.
We got to Stratford-upon-Avon in the afternoon and checked into the Shakespeare Hotel , a beautiful tudor building, right in the centre. We had a choice of a 'room in the old part of the hotel' (which would have been gorgeous no doubt) or a slightly more modern room which allowed smoking...I'll leave you to guess which room we went for!!! What was I saying about culture?!!! never mind!
This time we were a bit more wide awake so we did get out and about and explore. We walked around the canal area and checked out the narrowboats, had an icecream (a real, honest to goodness whippy icecream with a chocolate flake! yum!), had a pub lunch, had some drinks by the river and later on went out for a curry at a little indian restaurant down the road from the hotel!
The next morning we caught a taxi to Napton, near Rugby, and arrived at Napton Marina somewhat apprehensively!
And this is where the 'boat thing' comes in! Yes! We were about to embark on a whole new adventure! Oh brave new world! We were about to become intrepid narrowboaters! (through Black Prince Holidays) It had seemed like an excellent idea and great fun! Slowly gliding along the canals, looking at the sheep in the fields as we sipped on our ice cold wine or beer and contemplated which delightful hostelry to moor beside for a delicous home-cooked meal!
Was it that far from the truth? Noooo, not really! The bit we got wrong was the 'slowly gliding along the canals'......it's actually tremendous hard work when there's just two of you! But not all the time! We learnt a lot in our three short days on the canals, on our trusty 'Isla', a 58 foot long beauty! (that's, like, nearly as long as our house!!!)
Anyway we started off fine and only realised how difficult it was when we began to encounter other boats! Those canals are mighty narrow! Then the mooring.............you've got to line yourself up alongside the canal bank, Justin has to jump off with the centre rope leaving me in control of the tiller, then we have to get the two end ropes secured somehow, generally with giant 'tent pegs'! It's exhausting but at least you can congratulate yourselves afterwards with a nice cold drink from the lovely, lovely little fridge filled with cold wine and beer! Then you relax!
All in all, it was actually brilliant! We loved it and definitely would like to do it again, but with another couple! I didn't even mention the locks! Talk about nerve-racking! The thing is though that all the fellow narrow-boaters you encounter are really nice people, ready to help you out at any time, which they did! You're out in the fresh air all day, we were really lucky with the weather, even got sunburnt and had to buy suncream!, the ever-changing views are beautiful and there's such a feeling of peacefulness when everything's going smoothly!
We got up early each morning, we had tea and bacon rolls with one hand on the tiller, we stopped for delicious pub meals and we enjoyed our wine and beer, again with one hand on the tiller, in the afternoon manouevres and we again enjoyed our drinks in the late afternoon/early evening, once moored in a beautiful spot somewhere, looking at the view, feeding the ducks and reclining at the front of the boat!
The boat itself was so cute, like a caravan inside, with everything stretched along the length of it (obviously!), with a lounge area, dining area, kitchen, double bed, bathroom, etc.
We had the ipod pumped up and listened to good music and generally congratulated ourselves on our amazing narrowboating skills! Or discussed how damn difficult it could be!!!
We have to do it again! The canal is calling me!
Justin feeding the ducks moored outside Braunston village
Justin at the tiller!
our home for three days and three nights!
Linzi at the controls!We were sad to say goodbye to Isla but we were also, yet again, ready and champing at the bit for the next stage of our holiday!
We packed up on the morning of Thursday 2nd August and caught a cab to Rugby station from where we travelled to our next destination............................................................................................
London!
