Warwickshire Ring Canal holiday April 2011

Easter Sunday April 2011 we hired a UKBoat Hire narrowboat out of Rugby Marina, 4 of us and making good use of our Tesco clubcard vouchers. Decided to see whether time-lapse video are easy or not (or worthwhile), you can now be the judge. Left the marina and decided to do the Warwickshire ring clockwise - thought it best to get the Hatton flight out of the way earlier rather than later. Day 1 is here:-

Warwickshire Ring Day 1

Brought a extendable tripod from Maplins and fixed it to the front of the boat - the flexible mount worked pretty well and the Ricoh R8 camera took a while to set-up (1 photo every 5 seconds, lowest resolution & screen off, some freeware software to put all the photos together, Photolapse 3 http://photolapse-3-3-0.soft-free-download.com/) but worked well. Main problem was making sure the battery (we fortunately had 2) hadn't run out without us noticing - difficult from 40 feet away of course. Day 2 is here:-

Warwickshire Ring Day 2  

Day 3:-

Warwickshire Ring Day 3 This was a really hot day but we did manage to pair up with another boat for the Hatton flight - only because I pedaled up the flight on the Brompton and asked the boat a few locks in front if they wanted to share - I did say we were 1 lock behind which was a slight exaggeration (we were 3).

Day 4 saw us going through the litter strewn canals of Birmingham, mooring overnight at Star City with the ever present hum of the M6. Got stuck in one of the locks due to litter - couldn't understand why we were not moving - nor did the other boat waiting for us. Its a strange canal, going round the back of everywhere, some industrial dereliction and some residential but we had been into gas Street basin the year before so thought we would try the Grand Union this time.

Warwickshire Ring Day 4

Day 5 had a few locks but we had done most of them in the ring so time for a more relaxed time 

Warwickshire Ring Day 5
Same for Day 6 

Warwickshire Ring Day 6 

Day 7 was Royal Wedding day, poor TV reception on the TV so we decided to make for the Greyhound at Hawkesbury Junction, just made it in time for the wedding.
Warwickshire Ring Day 7

Battery packed up before getting back to the maria hence no shots of us entering Rugby Wharf. 

So they you have it - perhaps useful in that you can see where some good moorings may be - also you can just see the state of some of the towpath. Or is it boys with toys? Will try again on our next hire - Trent & Mersey towards Derby mid August out of Kings Bromley on Savoy Hill, if you see us coming w/c 20th August give us a wave.

Alvinne Brewery Visit July 2011

5 of us made our annual trip out to Chimay, Belgium for the l'Audax des Fagnes cycle ride http://audax-de-chimay.over-blog.com/ As usual we try to find a brewery to stop at on the return journey (and on the way out of possible). This year we contacted Glenn at Alvinne and he was kind enough to invite us to visit their new brewery, which was not yet brewing due to the new equipment not being installed as yet. Freshly imported all the way from China - cheaper than buying from the EU we were told.

The brewery has moved to a small town called Moen, a village near Kortrijk, where they have bought an old industrial building to put in a brand new brewery. The address is Vaartstraat 4a, Moen (Zwevegem), 8552 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Vaartstraat+4a,+Moen+(Zwevegem),+8552&hl=en&oe=utf-8

We arrived just after noon, as planned. Glenn invited us to a nearby cafe for a spot of lunch - lovely hot and sunny day and a pleasure to sit outside and talk about beer, Flanders, governments (or not as the case was) and even bikes. Back to the brewery to see what is planned - stainless steel everywhere and waiting for a engineer to link them all together.






At the back of all this steel are the wooden barrels that they hope to use to mature some of the beer. Many collected from a recent visit to Bordeaux and having a amazing small of the Monbazillac that had been matured in them previously. These are the barrels they use to mature the Cuvée d’Erpigny beer (15%) Here you can see Glenn explaining how they got around 17 barrels back from the Bordeaux area to Flanders - must have been a large van, shame the barrels were empty as some contained some very nice Bordeaux wine.




So now it was upstairs to taste some of the beers. Very comfortable it was too - as you can see from the photos. Not finished yet and the bar area still had to have the shelf glued on. One pump for draft beer and some very comfortable seats at eh end. We tried most of the regular beers finishing with the Cuvée d’Erpigny. It was then downstairs to purchase a few beers to take home with us. I was pleased to see a good selection of Fantome beers - which are very difficult to get even in Belgium itself.

 What better site than a fridge full of beer - and all at a very reasonable price with small tasting glasses available and the opportunity to be talked through each one by the brewer himself.

Thanks very much Glenn for all the trouble you went to to make us so welcome, Hopefully they will update their website and add details of local gites etc. for those wanting to visit and not drive - perhaps info on cycle hire in the area to explore the nice (flat) countryside to generate a thirst.