Rural Fox narrowboat interior

I think you’ll agree that a season of round-the-clock fires, condensation-laden windows, and just that general sense of having being inside for longer, can leave our boats—and ourselves—a little uninspired so as soon as the weather takes a turn toward the light, I like to have a really good spring clean.

By the end of winter wood ash and coal dust seem to have found their way into every crevice, which means it’s time to fling open the doors, grab a bucket of soapy water and a sponge and set to work on cleaning every wall, window, shelf and cupboard. I also like to wash any fabrics, curtains and cushion covers. Thoroughly clearing out the winter grime feels so good and also offers an opportunity to de-clutter alongside, which frees the mind ready for this season that brings with it new hopes and dreams to be realised.

Ready to enjoy signs of spring in our beautiful surroundings? 

Exploring Cambridgeshire’s Wildlife: Spotting Flora and Fauna with Fox Narrowboats

Making space for new light foods such as uplifting herbal teas and self raising flour for lemon-infused cakes is a good way to move away from the cocoa and spelt flour that kept us full and warm during winter. Go ahead and add inspiring books to your bookshelf too by re-distributing old reads to new homes, and be sure to dig out your waterway map books so you can get to planning some adventures for the coming year. In my opinion there’s nothing like pouring over physical maps to get the excitement bubbling!

river map planning – skylar_tv

With so much to see on the British Waterways in spring, from the first buds and bulbs bursting out, to ducklings and signets and (hopefully!) equally cheery faces on maiden cruises, if you’ve been tucked up in a winter mooring it’s important to untie the ropes and head off exploring. Plus, there’s nothing like the thought of your first stroll down the towpath—or cruise on the back of your boat—in a t-shirt, to motivate that first move following a cocooned winter.

Are you curious about a narrowboat cruise? Why not book onto one of our skippered boat trips!

www.foxboats.co.uk/boat-trips/

skippered boat trip fox narrowboats march

Which brings me to the last—but by no means least—important chore of spring cleaning: the exterior. It can be easy in winter to let the leaves, dirt and chimney dust clog up your roof, not to mention the odd bag of coal chucked up on a cold, dark night or a length of wood gathered on a dog walk and stored only to be forgotten. Having a clear up and then washing and polishing your paintwork will give everything a final lift. You can buy a boat washing shampoo, as well as polish, from any good boat chandlery and a simple vinegar spray will do the trick to sparkle up your windows. If you have canopies, a good brush down and wash using whatever the manufacturers suggest will ensure your narrowboat is spring-ready and with the final touch of a bunch of daffodils, you’re good to go and enjoy this new season!

Photo credits: River map Skyler Smith on Unsplash

Alice Elgie is a nature-loving writer who shares words about her wandering lifestyle through hold-in-the-hand letters and recorded reflections. aliceelgie.com

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With so much countryside, wildlife, heritage and things to see and do on the East Anglian waterways you may enjoy spending some time planning your ideal holiday route, before you come.

Our first tip is that you should never over-estimate how far you can go on your holiday!

A canal boat’s maximum speed is four miles an hour, but you’ll often find yourself moving much slower than that. You also need to factor in the locks, which take at least twenty minutes each, more if you are waiting for another boat to come through: So don’t try to do too much. However, going slow is part of the charm of a narrowboat holiday – it’s as much about the journey as it is about the places that you visit on the way!

“Canals are the fastest way of slowing down”.

You can stop to moor your boat at a variety of moorings; just not near bridges, junctions, locks or in other company’s boat yards without their permission. Environment Agency and other mooring sites are listed in the waterway guides and maps. Our company is also a member of GOBA so on the river Great Ouse their moorings are also available for your use. Your hire boat is supplied with mooring ropes fore and aft, steel ‘mooring pins’ and hammer.

Here are five brilliant resources for planning your lazy holiday cruise.

1) Fox Waterways Routes

First you can get a rough idea of where you want to go, from our website. Our online route guide will take you through the possible boating journeys, showing highlights on the waterways and good places to visit. You will cruise through rivers, canals and open sections during your boat hire holiday. From our hire boat base there is a choice of the waterways of East England, including the River Ouse, the Nene and the Middle Levels. See our simple maps and descriptions of places to visit here: Fox Waterways Routes.

2) Guide Books and Maps

Once you’re on board your hire boat you will find that we provide Imray guide books and Lockmaster maps with each boat. The Imray guides cover our local navigable rivers, creeks and lodes. The maps in each book are accompanied by essential notes and interesting commentary to help you find your way. For example, they cover places to moor, pubs to visit, towns to see and useful phone numbers. Lockmaster Maps are a famous series of canal and inland waterway maps printed at 1/2″ to the mile and offer a beautifully, detailed navigation guide.

Before your holiday begins you can also play around at home with various online guides.

3) CanalPlanAC

Nick’s Canal Route Planner — CanalPlanAC — is an interactive online guide to the inland waterways.

It helps you to plan your journey or holiday by calculating the length (distance, number of locks, time taken) of your trip and shows information about pubs and shops etcetera on the way. There are also plenty of waterways photographs on the site, so that you can begin to imagine your trip.

4) Boat Sat Nav

This online guide is optimised for use on mobile GPS devices such as phones and tablets (best) but is still accessible online using a laptop or desktop computer. It shows lock positions, services, moorings, shops, chemists, cash points, takeaways, bus and rail connections and more. The info is constantly updated. On a mobile device all you need is the Google Maps App and a Google account. On a laptop or desktop you don’t need anything other than a web browser to use this.

Boat Sat Nav

5) Waterway Routes

Waterway routes offer downloadable cruising maps for your computer, Android, iPhone/iPad or printout. These are available to buy in PDF or QCT format. QCT (QuickChart) is the file format used by Memory-Map software to store digital maps and charts. They offer waterways guides individually, but you can save money by ordering a bundle, such as the three cruising maps for River Nene and Middle Level Navigations + River Great Ouse and Tributaries. Fox Boats director, Paula Syred, likes to use these maps.

Wi-Fi is available on all our boats, which also have in-car chargers and 240v power supplies. There is a 1.25GB allowance for short breaks and 2.5GB per week.

Which Boat?

While planning your holiday route why not also begin thinking about which boat you’d like to hire? We have different sized boats sleeping different numbers of people. See the different layouts inside the boats here: Fox Holiday Fleet.

You may also like: How to Plan a Narrowboat Holiday That Your Family Will Love

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The post How to Plan a Fenland Narrowboat Hire Holiday appeared first on Fox Narrowboats.

How do you keep everybody happy, when you’re planning a narrowboat holiday?

Mum wants to browse the shops in a pretty market town, the kids want to run wild through the meadows and woodland, and Dad just wants a quiet real ale in a country pub somewhere.

But what if you could do all of these things and include a trip aboard a heritage steam or diesel train? Imagine relaxing in a restored wooden panelled coach or compartment and being taken back in time to the golden age of steam!

The Nene Valley steam railway is based near Peterborough, so you can easily include it in your narrowboat holiday. Foxboats Route 3 – March to Ferry Meadows Country Park is a 12 hours return trip and ideal for a short break.

If you want to plan a narrowboat holiday that keeps everybody happy, and includes something a little different, you could consider a steam train trip in your holiday plans.

The Nene Valley Railway line travels through a tunnel, (built in 1845,) to a country station at Yarwell on the Northamptonshire border. Visitors can use the train as a base to explore the stations at Wansford, Ferry Meadows with its country park, Orton Mere and its riverside walks and lakes, and the station in Peterborough.

The Narrowboat Journey

Setting off from our hire boat base in March, Cambridgeshire, you’ll pass Floods Ferry and the Greenwich Meridian, before heading on to Ashline Lock at the historic market town of Whittlesey. After leaving Whittlesey you’ll pass a couple of pubs and then head into more open countryside, travelling beside a deep brick pit. On the approach to Peterborough you will see the cathedral across the flat fields that lead to Stanground Lock. Peterborough Cathedral is the resting place of Katherine of Aragon and former resting place of Mary Queen of Scots, dating back to 654 AD.

A short branch of the River Nene leads from this lock, with Stanground Village on the left and a nature reserve on the right, before the river goes under the railway bridge and onto the wide waters of the Nene. Turn left here to find visitor moorings along the length of the park; which are really convenient for the city centre.

Carrying on up the river from the centre of Peterborough you will see a series of open spaces and wild areas on the right that are part of Nene Park: acres of meadows, lakes and woods running alongside the River Nene.

Further up river from Peterborough Bridge, after some guillotine locks and the moorings of Peterborough Yacht Club, you will come to the entrance of Ferry Meadows Country Park on the left. Then, a short connecting channel will take you into Orton Lake. Head towards the left-hand side of the lake and you will see some pontoons provided for visitor moorings.

Ferry Meadows is great for families, offering cycle hire, a visitor centre, shop, play areas, a miniature railway, walking, kite-flying, pony riding, nature-spotting and fishing as well as facilities for various water sports at the water sports centre and on its associated ponds and lakes.

So perhaps you could moor here and then join the steam train at Ferry Meadows Country Park. There is a regular steam train service and occasional diesel hauled services.

The NVR has just celebrated 40 years with a week of special anniversary events, with a number of special trains and attractions. You may like to visit the NVR website to find out about more upcoming special events and experiences.

For more surprising and unusual tips and ideas for your narrowboat holiday, enter your email address in the box in the right side bar (‘Follow blog’) and we’ll send you articles direct to your in box.

Image Attribution
By PeterSkuce – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

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