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The Pat and John Brinnand Story.
A long winded tale about the experiences and follies of a couple of wrinkly youngsters as they made a seven month journey from Brighouse in Yorkshire to Weedon in Nothamptonshire along 1,300 miles of Britain's canals and rivers. It starts with their search for a narrow boat and ends with the hard decisions they made before returning to the United States.
Note: We started writing these exploits back in 1996. We thought they might be of interest to anyone considering a similar adventure or holiday on the scenic waterways of Britain. Full of enthusiam, we had the first three sections written by the end of '96...... Now, here it is 1999 and we haven't made much headway, have we? We really do plan on finishing it. The trouble is we are having so much fun traveling all over the place we don't seem to have much time left over.
Pat and I are in our early sixties and originally hailed from England, having immigrated to the United States in 1964. Following my retirement in 1991 we started giving some thought to an extended trip to our homeland. However, we did not want to spend our time travelling the "high speed" motorways and "crowded" country lanes; so, like L.T.C. Rolt of "Cressy" fame some 54 years before.............
"We went to the England of the canals to get away from the England of the arterial roads, the mushroom towns and factory belts, and discover the remains of that rural England which the towns have starved and emptied....."
We'd been on a two previous canal holidays so had some idea of what we were getting into, at least, that's what we thought. We started the planning process in early '91; decided it was a definite "go" by the late summer of '92 and took off for our adventure on the 12th. March '93. Nearly three years have passed since our journey but I still have plenty of that murky water left in my veins and today I can be found on the WEB as John..... The Canaloholic from Reno, Nevada. [Photo]
Then started our Research.
Next came Decision Time, and
Finally, Owners of
We have grouped our travels by geographic area rather than presenting a chronology our journey.
Cheshire Ring & Upper Peak Forest Canal.
...* Four Counties Ring & Caldon Canal.
...* Llangollen & Northern Shropshire Union Canal.
...* Midlands Rings & Ashby Canal.
...* Oxford & Grand Union Canals.
...* I haven't started these yet...
What it all Cost and
We have included links to a condensed glossary
and bibliography; these will, in turn, point
you to WEB pages at other sites that contain much more comprehensive information.
To start the tale from the beginning read how we went about
Acquiring our Narrowboat
.
If you have any questions or want to chat about our adventure just send a note to: John....The Canaloholic in Reno.
If you are interested in British, and other European , waterways please check
out 
George's Canal Boating.
Return to Our Homepage.