Wednesday 20 July 2011

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:-

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:-
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.
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 
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.

No comments:

Post a Comment