David: Off to foreign parts

WE HAVE just spent a week on the Forth & Clyde and Union canals, cruising from Falkirk to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Glasgow and back to Falkirk.

Taking our own boat would have been prohibitively expensive, so we hired one from Black Prince. We have not hired in Britain for many years, but were impressed with the boat and the service received.

When CaRT was set up the Scottish arm of British Waterways was split off and became Scottish Canals. Most of the signage still says 'British Waterways Scotland; we were told that the new body cannot afford a wholesale change nor even to commission a new logo.

The canals were restored as a through route in 2002 at a cost, according to one source, of £78 million. This included the construction of the Falkirk Wheel to connect the two canals, as the original flight of locks had been lost to housing.

The rest of the money was spent on replacing many dropped bridges and extensive dredging. The result is an excellent cruising route with a towpath, much of it hard surfaced, used a great deal by walkers and cyclists. Boats though, were very few and far between. There are about 15 hire boats, from several companies all based at Falkirk, and several trip boats.

In a week's cruising we met only a couple of private boats moving, although we saw quite a few tied up in the two marinas on the system. It was rather like cruising the Wyrley & Essington—hours went by without seeing another boat, moving or tied up. Unlike the Wyrley & Essington, there was virtually no rubbish in the water and even the graffiti was limited and showed signs that attempts were made to keep it under control by regular over-painting, even in Glasgow. Apparently weed growth is a problem, but they operate two large weed-cutters which seemed to be effective—we went down the weed hatch once in the whole week.

Our cruise did not take in the lock flights at either end of the Forth & Clyde, through lack of time, but the locks and lift bridges we did do were all operated for us by Scottish Canals staff. We could not have operated the locks even if we had wanted to, since the paddle spindles are shrouded and can only be operated by special windlasses. In any case, there were more than enough staff—one (electric) lift bridge seemed to require four men to operate it. As a job creation exercise the restoration has been very efficient.

We very much enjoyed our trip and would recommend it as a refreshing change from our sometimes overcrowded canals in England. We might even go back and tackle the lock flights at each end.  The photograph is of the Edinburgh terminus.

Bring on the Kelpies

Before we went home we went by car to visit the large building site that is currently at the junction of the Forth and Clyde with the Firth of Forth near Falkirk. We were given a tour of the operation by the friendly lock keeper, who made the whole thing clear. The current junction is only useable for a very short period on each tide and this restricts the use made of the canal for its original purpose, to transit sea to sea between the Forth and the Clyde at Glasgow.

A new lock is being built in a different location to increase the tidal window. Around this lock is being created a huge artificial tourist attraction of gardens and playing fields, centred on 'The Kelpies', which will be two enormous horses' heads flanking the new lock. The original idea was that the heads would move when the lock operated, but this has now been abandoned, since the site is almost on the hard shoulder of the M9 and it was thought it would be too distracting to motorists.

Instead they will simply be lit in changing colours—just as distracting I would have thought. The Kelpies are not yet in evidence, though a section of their metal skin was on display.

The concrete bases for them are ready and are enclosed by what will be moats, in order to discourage vandals from attacking them. While the new lock will obviously be of use, the rest of the project seems to me to be a complete waste of money—no matter how attractive it may be, it is surrounded by a noisy motorway, an industrial estate and a large oil refinery—not my idea of an attractive day out, Kelpies or not.

I can only hope that the money is coming from the EU and not the British tax payer. Just think what could have been done with that sort of money on, say, the Cotswold Canals—but then they are not in a depressed area.

Deployment of volunteers

Passing through Hillmorton recently we were greeted by a volunteer, who helped us through the bottom lock and told us that more were available further up the flight. In fact, altogether there were five volunteers around, though we received no more help—perhaps they were being trained. Hillmorton is quite a sensible place to deploy volunteers, since it the 'first lock' for a number of hire bases, some of them in the Braunston area being too far away to provide assistance themselves.

Earlier on we had come down Ryder's Green and Perry Bar locks, needless to say all on our own. Volunteer assistance would have been very welcome and useful, but obviously it would be silly to deploy them on flights which probably don't see one boat a day. I think there is scope for a 'book-a-volunteer' system, whereby on giving say 48 hours notice you could ask for help at a particular location. This would mean that the volunteer had some guarantee of having something to do at a particular time, rather than just hanging around on the off-chance. It would also encourage people to make more use of the more obscure routes, especially on the BCN.

Upton moorings

I was horrified to see that CaRT have responded to my plea in a previous piece for more moorings on the Severn by allocating one of the few existing ones at Upton to a trip boat. I absolutely agree with all the correspondents who have commented on this scandalous piece of stupidity on CaRT's part and wonder how big a bribe the trip boat operators paid.

I feel that the only valid response from boaters is to ignore any notices and continue to use the pontoon.

David Hymers