We spent our Easter weekend at the Ellesmere Port Easter Gathering, a rally of historic narrowboats the likes of which we have dreams of one day owning. Through both the blog and our membership of the Young Working Boaters Society, we know quite a few people who own these boats, so as well appreciating lots of fantastic old boats, the rally was a chance to catch up with friends and have fun.
We stayed for two full days, arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving on Monday. The train journey from Cambridge up to the Port, which is on the Wirral just west of Liverpool, took 6 hours so we wanted to make it worthwhile! Our accomodation for the week was a tent in the hold of Sarah's Chertsey, which we bought for Shackerstone and as yet has not been pitched on land!
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| That's our blue tunnel tent in Chertsey (on the left) |
On Friday, we arrived, pitched the tent and then just relaxed, enjoying the unseasonable weather and taking in the sights of the Inland Waterways Museum, bumping into people we knew, being introduced to those we didn't. The weekend was a great opportunity to get to know members of the Historic Narrowboat Owners Club, of which we are now honorary members. They have regular meetings, a newsletter and are just a decent bunch of people who shareour love for these boats. When, in some years time, we come to the stage of contemplating upgrading the Duck, this group will be one of the ways through which we hope to find our perfect boat, but in the meantime, it is great to just chat about boats with likeminded people!
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| Traditional boatwoman's dress |
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| Butty Gifford, recently repainted by Phil Speight |
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| Beautiful National 2DM engine |
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| Rivets on Fenny |
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| The yellow and blue BW one is Blossom's new boat Darley! |
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| Spectacular sight of big ships passing on the Manchester Ship Canal |
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| Peter and Laura on Stanton had this great Cobb BBQ |
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| Meanwhile we tried out some 'Arctic Explorer' rations! |
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| Mmm... (they were actually quite tasty!) |
After a long, hot, day we retired early to our tent in the hold. Over the next few days I shall continue to recount our weekend's adventures!
Wow, that looks fascinating! One of the volunteers at work used to help at the Boat Museum and she absolutely loved it.
ReplyDeleteLooks and sounds like you had a fantastic weekend. Nice to see Chertsey there. One of these years we will make it there, but the timing is always to early for us.
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