Cruising the Peak District with Wandering Duck

There are more than 2000 miles of canals in the UK. This information can be found on Wikipedia, or from my friendly canal boat captains, Mark and Ruth – and I prefer the personal touch. Mark and Ruth own Wandering Duck, a 69-foot narrowboat from which they help people explore England’s Peak District. The Peak District is east of Manchester and one of the most visited national parks in the world. And in case you’re wondering, the most visited is Mt Fuji National Park in Japan.  Now that tidbit did come from Wikipedia.

Journalism has its perks, such as those rare occasions when one is tasked with doing something cool just to write about it. In this particular case that lucky journalist was my friend Claire, one of several ex-Advocate journos in the UK. Claire was offered a weekend away on Wandering Duck to write an article for TNT Magazine and she got to take a friend. Turns out there are also perks to being unemployed and therefore free for last-minute adventures. Read Claire’s article here.

The weekend started with a pint of cider in a small pub in Romiley while we waited for the all-clear to board. A car tyre had got cosy with the propeller and the boat wasn’t going anywhere until it was off. We arrived at the boat as Mark was drying off, having stripped to his undies and got into the river to pull the tyre free.

Having seen a photo of one of our hosts in his underwear, it seemed only fair to get to know them. Ruth and Mark have a lot of hostel experience and wanted to buy their own. But hostels don’t come cheap so instead the couple bought the canal boat and turned it into a floating accommodation. Some nights they moor and open it simply as accommodation and other times escort people through the canals. We’re doing the latter. Claire and I are joined by five others for the two-night trip on board Rakiraki, which is Maori for duck. The name is a little nod to the time Mark and Ruth spent in New Zealand. Rakiraki has four sets of bunks, two bathrooms, a double bed up one end (Mark and Ruth live on the boat) and a kitchen/lounge. It’s as snug as you’d expect a canal boat to be, but it never felt uncomfortable sharing such a small space with strangers.

The tyre held things up a bit so we spent the first night moored at Romiley, enjoying Ruth’s amazing cooking: lasagne and cheesecake. Meals are included, but drinks come from the Honest Bar. Over the weekend we marked down what we drank and settled at the end of the trip. It’s easy to get carried away when all you need to get a drink is a pen.

Before we knew it, it was after midnight. With patchy mobile phone coverage and few sockets for recharging, we’d been forced to turn to “traditional” forms of entertainment, such as conversation and my first game of Jenga. We hadn’t even gone to bed on our first night and already remembering what had happened that morning was difficult. We were in another world.

The next morning we were up early with 16 locks waiting for us. There weren’t the automatic push-a-button-and-wait style I am familiar with after my time France. These required a lot of winding and pushing and pulling and more winding. But it turned out to be a good way of working off the chocolate brownies Ruth made at the request of Tim, one of the other guests from Manchester.

After the locks and two bridges, we relaxed with a cuppa and a brownie at the front of the boat. Every now and then we heard some traffic, but there was barely any noise except for us, cows in the paddock and dogs being walked along the side of the canal. The countryside is just what English countryside is supposed to look like (according to BBC classics such as Heartbeat). Rolling green paddocks, sheep and cows, stone fences and cute cottages. I don’t understand how people can visit London and say they’ve seen the UK – you haven’t seen anything and you’re missing out.

It may be summer, but this is England. Still, we got lucky with the weather. A few little drops caused me to pull my hood over my head for a few minutes, but that was all. Although it was a weekend we didn’t pass many boats on the move, but there were plenty of boats moored on the side of the canal, most looking very at home.

On Saturday night we moored near New Mills, a nearby town that we walked out to. It was a nice walk and went by an old mill of some sort – there’s probably a story between that abandoned building and the name of the town, but I don’t know it. The building was gorgeous and I daydreamed as I walked by it. When I win the lottery I shall buy it and turn it into….something.

We got back to more of Ruth’s cooking. This time she had a casserole waiting. We all turn to the Honesty Bar again and a game of Bamboozled.

After just 24 hours on the boat it felt like we’d been away for a week. The locks that we’d gone through in the morning felt days ago, not hours. I think this is what relaxation feels like.

On Sunday morning we were up early and docked about 11am at Bugsworth Basin, the boat’s home. We’d covered 10 miles, but since the speed limit was about 4mph and we had all those locks, you can see why it took us so long.

A big thank you to Claire for the photos. I was still sans camera on this trip.