Rowkin Rovings Blog

29^th September 2016

Well, this is it. The final blog and the end of our wondrous journey of the English inland waterways in 2016.

We accomplished what we had set out to do except for the Rochdale Canal which we will come back and do. We circumnavigated 50% of the system so that leaves 50% to do in our retirement, whenever that may be.

Very restless night for both of us with Fraser sitting bolt upright in bed in the early hours shouting out “floating” – wonder what this could possibly refer to. Di had a dream where she was back on nb Lucy and rounded a bend to find herself at the bottom of Niagara Falls – yeap, she has also gone slightly bonkers.

We were right on one of the runways at Heathrow but couldn’t hear a thing in our room but when we went outside the smell of av gas was something to be savoured and they were taking off every 45 seconds. What was good, was neither of the girls was fussed about the noise or the activity around them.

Whilst waiting in the hotel lobby for our transfer to the airport a flight crew from Doha arrived and all went gaga over the girls. You know, it is great to see the amount of smiles that they bring to peoples faces. It takes peoples minds off whatever is worrying them at the moment.

We were required to be at check-in three hours prior to the flight due to the complication of the girls. It took a full hour to process them and many people stopping by to pat them. Once they processed our bags we were taken to a special security area where they were scanned and tested for explosives etc etc. What was disappointing was that they made us remove the ice we had put inside their water containers in their cages. Air Canada coming over had advised us to put ice in their cages but because of the no fluid policy this way, we had to remove it. They tell us that they will put some water back in once they are out the back. Hope they do not open the cages to do this as Maples was one unhappy puppy. Toque sat there with wide eyes and a pleading look in her eyes. We had taken them out to the grass at the hotel and had them running around and playing so they are tired and they will settle down.

So our final farewell to everyone. Thank you for reading our blog and we hope you have enjoyed it. We also hope that we may have piqued your interest in doing a canal trip and if you have a hankering to maybe do one, just contact and we will be glad to provide you with any assistance you may require.

It has been a very interesting time to be in Britain and we felt that we were living history with Brexit, Labour imploding in on itself and the Conservation leadership turmoil with Theresa May. It will be interesting to see how things go for Britain in the next five years.

So, we promised you some blog stats. It has blown us away as to how many followers we have had and by the time we sign off we think we will have over 9000 views. We didn’t really know what we were doing when we set up this blog as our primary purpose was to use it as a diary for ourselves but it has turned into enjoyable exercise and great opportunity to share our canal passion and thoughts with everyone.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank our special friends Mark and Sarah for looking after our house and handling all the dramas that occurred with the build next door and the earthen collapse between the two houses; the leaking taps and all whilst they themselves were renovating their own home.

We also wish to thank Dwight and Leslie for their gold class chaffeur services, ferrying us to and from YYC with the luggage overload and the pooches and for keeping a secondary eye on our house.

So it is only a temporary adieu for now as we will be back!!!!!