We 'holidayed' on board a couple times before finally deciding to buy a boat of our own.  The Four-Counties Ring was in 2004 and then the Leicester Ring in 2006.  It wasn't all smooth, er ... motoring.

SOAR POINT

I don’t really know why we went wrong: there were enough signs telling us we had strayed from the main navigation.  But wrong we went, blissfully carrying on down the un-navigable River Soar - towards a weir.

We had set off from Rugby on our second narrow boat holiday and had been going for just over a week - long enough to get half way round the Leicester Ring (travelling clockwise).The June weather was glorious with long, hot and sunny days followed by evenings made for canal side barbeques.  There were six on board: Me, Sue, Sue’s mum and dad, and Jack and Vera, our two labs.

As we left Cossington Lock, chatting amongst ourselves on the large cruiser stern, I looked up and saw the expanse of open water directly ahead.  I steered straight for it, missing the junction of the Soar and the River Wreake, and sign number one: an enormous deviation left marker mounted on the opposite bank that tried its very best to send us the correct way, into the Wreake.  I was pontificating on how we were crewing one of the true workboats of the modern Cut: a hire boat, which provided a service, and created revenue and employment.  I’d forgotten what the original bargees had that we lacked: knowledge and experience.

And so I missed sign number two.  On the right side at the junction there was a large trad on a permanent mooring.  A small group sat round a garden table nearby looked up as we passed by.  They grinned but didn’t wave; their look said it all: ‘Oh dear, how awful – what fun’.  I should have seen it but my mind was set; this water was wide and deep, it must be right.

Sign number three couldn’t have been more obvious if it was six foot tall, clad in a yellow jacket and standing next to a big white car with a blue flashing light on top.  The river was covered in lily pads bank to bank, bar a small, weaving channel up the middle.  How many boats had passed that way recently?  Not many.  Did I recognise the significance?  I saw what I wanted to see: a big river.

No sooner had we rounded the next bend when sign four presented itself: two sunken wooden hulks straddling half the river.  “Cor, look”, I said.  “You’d have thought BW would have cleared that lot away, wouldn’t you”. 

On we went.  Sue popped below and was soon back on deck clutching a copy of Pearson’s.  “There’s an un-navigable section of the Soar here, you don’t think we’re on it do you”? 

“No, we’re alright”, I said, authoritatively.

“I hope you’re right, if not, there’s a weir at the end of this lot”

The river was now getting pretty narrow, and very winding.  We passed a short section that broadened a little, with rushes on one side and a steep, muddy bank on the other.  After two more bends, the river changed completely: it lost all pretensions of grandeur and started to look as if, eventually, it would become a stream.  I stopped the boat.

“There’s another boat coming”.  Sue had spotted a narrow boat travelling behind us, quite a way off, and sure enough the boat was following on the same stretch of river.  It was a shorter craft; one which we realised had been in the last lock with us.

“He’s a local boat”, I said, remembering the conversation I’d had with the owner as we worked the lock paddles together.  “He must know what he’s doing”.

“He probably does”, Sue said.

“Told you.  I thought we were alright, I’m a pretty good judge of these …”

“He’s turning round”.

“Ah”.

Our final sign had come.  A local boat, much shorter than us, was turning round and going back – from a much wider part of the river than I had brought us to.

“We’ll have to turn round and go back”, I said.

“What, from here, we’ll never do it”. 

“We’ll reverse back to that wider bit by the rushes.  We can’t reverse all the way out; we’ve only got a week left”.

With Sue working the pole from the bow, I gently backed the boat round the previous couple of bends and then tried to turn it around.  The first attempt failed: it was impossible to bury the bow in the reeds.  We tried again at a different spot.  Too narrow, even with the bow well and truly in the mud on the far bank.  Third time lucky.  We reversed a few more yards and tried again.  This time she went, slowly pulling herself round on the bow, with just inches to spare.

We retraced our steps passed the sunken wrecks and the sea of lily pads until we reached the junction.  The little group on the private mooring rushed to the bank side, as if to witness some unexpected spectacle.

“Nice down there, isn’t it”?  I shouted.

“Don’t know”, come the reply. “We’ve never been”.