Cruising the Cut

In which David sets off on his narrowboat again, this time up the North Oxford and Coventry canals with a massive tour planned for the year.

The Ashby canal is reached - miles of glorious countryside cruising with no locks to interrupt the trip. The sun shines, the birds tweet - this is what narrowboat life is all about.

The end of the Ashby canal is reached - it doesn't connect to another waterway and indeed the final few miles are under a programme of restoration, so David turns the narrowboat around and comes back the way he just came.

A break from the usual narrowboat cruising in this episode as David visits his hometown's canal festival and then the annual inland waterways show at Crick in Northamptonshire.

Reluctantly, David leaves the Ashby canal, taking his narrowboat further up the Coventry canal during which time he spots alpacas on the towpath, deals with unseasonably rainy weather and waits at the slowest water point ever.

The unseasonably rainy weather is replaced with unseasonably hot weather - for a day - during which time David seeks out shade for his narrowboat amongst the trees of the Coventry canal.

Having reached Fradley Junction, David takes his narrowboat onto the Trent & Mersey canal and crashes into another boat - very slowly - at a lock queue.

After a worrying morning spent trying to rescue a drowning sheep, David takes the narrowboat further up the Trent and Mersey canal to Stone where he brings a friend aboard for a few days.

David and his passenger embark on a voyage along the twisty, windy, narrow, overgrown - and yet quite charming - Caldon Canal.

Here, David reaches end of the Caldon canal at Froghall, despite a nasty moment when the narrowboat began juddering along a river. Plus he takes time out from cruising to visit friends about their widebeam canal boat.

The Caldon canal has two far ends - it splits into two, going to Froghall and Leek - so in this episode, David takes his narrowboat to the Leek arm. Then he leaves the boat again and visits friends going over the world-famous Pontcysyllte aqueduct in north Wales.

Having left the Caldon canal behind, David takes his narrowboat once more through the scary Harecastle tunnel and emerges onto what is now his favourite canal - the Macclesfield.

David continues up the gloriously beautiful Macclesfield canal.

Finishing his 2019 cruising season on the Peak Forest canal, David then takes the narrowboat to a dry dock for the hull to be re-painted; and there's disaster as he breaks down en-route to his winter mooring.