We relinquished our sunny meadow mooring at Daingean & headed back towards Lowtown again for pumpout. Amusingly the journey that had taken us over a month took us just 7 hours in 3 hops on the return.
On our way to Lowtown we saw that several of the boats from Sallins who had gone down the Barrow had turned round due to a breach & were headed back up. They planned to head back the way we’ve come & then out on the Shannon so we asked if we could tag along & they kindly said we could.
So after pumpout & another boater kindly getting us a couple of cans of diesel topup we returned to our old favourite Ticknevin lock. We started with 3 boats then became 4 then became 6!
Whilst moored there one of the heritage boats came past & mum got a couple of good photos of it.
John Weaving was a river nomad who originally lived on “The Peter Farrell”. He spent most of his life travelling up and down the Shannon just fixing stuff. Here’s a picture of John and some friends back in the day…
There was a painting used in the movie was created by Goodfellas co-writer Nicholas Pileggi’s mother based on a 1978 photograph in National Geographic magazine of ‘river nomad’ and former banker John Weaving and his dogs Brocky and Twiggy on the Shannon.
John was a former banker who had lived out his retirement on the river Shannon and was quite a well-known figure in the area. In fact, the two dogs often accompanied him on his journeys up and down the river. There’s even a memorial bust of John Weaving near Terryglass Harbour in Tipperary that’s still there to this day so when we get there we’ll chcek that out. Sadly, John didn’t live to see himself immortalised in film as he passed away in 1987 just before the film’s release.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse whilst we were at Ticknevin so we hunkered down for the day but we managed to brave the cold for a night round the campfire. Well mum did we were snoozing on the settee
During the campfire we very excitingly had a radio dedication for Cosmo & Daquiri played on Dublin radio station Today FM. One of our little gang of boaters Claire is the DJ for the Saturday night show.
Sunday dawned a bit nicer but we heard that The Peter Farrell was grounded beyond Edenderry due to low water levels so we decided to brave the weed & cruise into Edenderry Harbour. So we set off in a six boat convoy.
One of the penalties of having such beautiful clear water here & the recent hot weather means the sunlight gets through the water & the weeds flourish. However we just had one midway foray down the weedhatch & then mum cleared it once we were moored up. At least the weeds are easy enough to pull off the prop. The harbour looked quite different to when we were locked down there with all the little white flowers blooming on the weed.
We were first to moor up & one by one the other boats arrived. There was a lots of shuffling & poling as its tight turning in the harbour not helped by fouled props of course.
So nice not to be billy no mates here in Edenderry this time!
We arrived back in Edenderry on a beautifully sunny day. We moored up again in the harbour but were shocked to see how busy it was. There were people everywhere & lockdown hadn’t changed other than people are allowed 5k away from their homes now. Ireland has a 5 stage plan at 3 week intervals for easing lockdown & first stage is due on 18 May. We are now allowed to travel 5km so Waterways Ireland have advised if you live 5km or less from your boat you can travel to it & take it our but all locks are still officially closed. It’s hard to work out from government plan how boating lockdown will be lifted but the closest parallel we can make is we won’t be able to cruise properly not until 20 July when caravan parks etc… are opened. But we keep watching the WI guidance even though that doesn’t really account for continuous cruisers. For now we’re in a lock free zone so we’re just doing very short hops & hoping that’s Ok.
We’d been warned previously that boats at Edenderry were a bit of a magnet to unwanted attention & although the last time we were there we had not trouble this time we weren’t so lucky. I think as it had been such a sunny day there’d been a lot of drinking & there were quite a few drunk people round the harbour all harmless but a change from our nice secluded mooring at Ticknevin. The first night we were woken a lot by noise so we kept barking but mum let us off as we were on guard. At 2am we had people running across the boat roof so that set us off barking big time. Mum also discovered in the morning that we’d had sticky drink thrown up the cratch cover so we decided we would move on from Edenderry.
Sunday was cold & very windy so we had to stay put but mum got a big supermarket shop done & Sean very kindly fetched us 3 cans of diesel. We also had another visitor Denis from the Royal branch of the IWAI so mum enjoyed chatting to him & asking him lots of questions about how it all works in Ireland.
Monday the wind had dropped slightly but mum had no phone signal so as she couldn’t do any work she decided to brave the turn in the harbour & set off. A few days later we discovered three had been down that day. After filling up with water we set off headed in a new direction right out of the Edenderry Branch.
We moored up at the quay at Rhode bridge about 1.5km from Rhode village. Sadly there was an abandoned car there spoiling a lovely spot. Mum cut that out of the photos!
It was nice to be out in the countryside again. But sadly the next evening a gang of youths turned up & started trashing the car & climbing on our boat again. The police were there within minutes but then the police left & the lads stayed. They were then trying to pull the car out of the ditch with a 4×4 with wheels spinning & the vehicle pointing right at the boat. We were terrified the car would suddenly move & the 4×4 would fly into the boat. Eventually they gave up & left but we resolved to leave the next day.
Mum didn’t sleep much that night so was very very rarely up to see the sunrise the next morning. Woke us up too messing about hanging out of the window taking photos!!
Mum had work calls the next day till 3pm so we left after that. Mum had spotted on the map that there was a Bord Na Mona lift bridge not too far away which would have moorings at it so off we headed. As we approached the bridge which really is in the middle of nowhere our hearts sank as we saw a load of youths on the bridge. We started to tie up just thinking we’d stay there till they’d gone but one of them shouted he’d do the bridge for us. So they lifted the bridge & we went through to moor on the other side.
Unfortunately then they proceeded to open & close the bridge for the next hour so maybe we did the wrong thing! Anyway it was a lovely remote mooring but we were back on planks for embarking & disembarking. Mum has a real hard job mooring up like this as she obviously has to jump off & back on the boat to tie up & put the planks in place across the gap. We know its only a matter of time before she goes in doing this & we won’t laugh honestly.
Anyway other than the kids most days opening & closing the bridge it was a nice mooring although we had a very low internet signal which wasn’t good for mums work.
We went on some really interesting walkies & learnt all about the peat briquettes from The Bog of Allen.
A tractor pulls a blade behind it which cuts the blocks of turf and leaves them in strips. Later the turf is stacked 4 or 5 layers high as in the pic above. That let’s the air circulate through it which dries it faster. This is all back breaking manual work done seasonally.
See how clever me & Daquiri are teaching you all this!!
After walkies we headed back over the bridge & noticed the hut that the bridge controls were in now has a big padlock on it! If we can’t continue onwards before 20 July we’ll have to come back this way but that’s another days problem!!
We had a nice few days here & it’s been fascinating exploring the peat bog. Well Daquiri & mum have been fascinated I’ve been too busy eating it!!
Not quite up to Ticknevin standards but mum did get a nice evening shot of the pink glow over the canal with a strategically positioned swan to make it look all arty!
And we’re off… moving after several weeks locked down…. freedom!!
It was a gorgeously hot sunny day as we departed Edenderry & turned left at the end of the arm to retrace our steps back to Lowtown. Mum had the music playing & was happy once again. She hates having to stay in one place. Boating is completely under her skin & she loves adventuring. We love it too especially all the new walkies.
We intended to get to the lock & just moor up below it till Monday as we didn’t want to call Alan the lockie out on a Saturday but as we approached as if by magic he appeared. Apparently a fisherman we’d passed had kindly called him to help us at the lock. So we went above the lock & moored up there.
It was absolutely wonderful to be out in the countryside again. Mum was ecstatic & so were we.
The water here is so clear & there’s an amazing view looking back down from the lock where we saw many wonderful sunsets. Mum was able to set her table out & we all had dinner al fresco.
We stayed at Ticknevin lock for a couple of days but then had to move to Allenwood for shopping. so we were back on our lovely little mooring there where we could still sit outside the boat.
We had a great time here for a few days chilling in the grass.
Then we headed up to Lowtown to get pumpout turned round & came back to Allenwood. This time mum decided to try & moor up at the bridge before as it was much nearer for shopping but it looked shallow & was outside someones house. She managed it & then could buy all the heavy stuff at the garage even treating herself to a rare bottle of wine.
We just stayed here one night then headed back to our new favourite spot at Ticknevin lock. Now we were facing the lock so mum could sit on the front & watch the sunsets.
Whilst we were there mum took part in a virtual boating challenge. Each year there is a BCN (Birmingham Canal Navigation) 24hr marathon challenge. You enter in teams & have to travel as much of the BCN as you can accruing points for mileage & locks whilst solving quizzes & challenges along the way. We entered this in 2013 with Uncle Alan & Auntie Sally as crew. Much of the challenge is in the tactical planning of routes to accrue the maximum points. This year as the challenge can’t happen they decided to run a virtual challenge where you can not only just cruise the current canals you had a time machine & could cruise the 60 miles of canals that are closed down.
We entered a team with friends from Urban Moorings & Tom also from Ireland. We had a daily quiz & challenge to do plus had to type up our blog of our virtual journey each day. It was great fun but hard work. We ended up coming 5th out of 14 teams. Our virtual blog is here:
Here’s our team on one of the trips back in time!!!
We eventually had to wrench ourselves away from Ticknevin as we started to run low on food & headed back to Edenderry.
I’ll leave you with some of mums wonderful sunset photos but here’s some photos of two handsome fellas who live aboard Golden Boyz enjoying themselves at Ticknevin.
Well it’s been interesting times & we had paused our blog due to the Coronavirus lockdown . But here we catch you up with what’s been happening aboard nb Golden Boyz over that long period of not mowving.
Interestingly we finished our last blog with we have no plans anymore as all our plans had been cancelled! We couldn’t have said a truer word. We reluctantly departed our little mooring at Allenwood as we needed a supermarket & water. We’d only been cruising about 5 mins when a car pulled up alongside (a lot of the canal have roads/tracks running up one side of the water). It was another fantastic Waterways Ireland lockie who said he’d go ahead & do the lock for me.
We passed under the lift bridge that we’d walked to & continued onwards past the Closed Briquette factory.
The factory was opened in 1934 but ran into financial trouble so was taken over by the Turf Development Board, the fore runner to Bord na Mona who you’ll here me mention a fair bit. It was then closed in 1993.
We passed through Ticknevin lock (20) with the wonderful help from the lockie & continued across the long straight embankment towards Edenderry.
This whole stretch of canal runs across a bog & was one of the most difficult engineering feats. Bord na Mona is the company that began developing the peatlands of Ireland with the aim to provide economic benefit for Irish Midland communities and achieve security of energy supply for the recently formed Irish Republic. The rails that criss cross the canal were used for transporting the turf & dried peat & of course so were the turfboats on the canal. So often The Grand canal is just a long straight line stretching out in front of me.
After passing over Blundell Aqueduct it was a sharp right turn into the Edenderry Branch which ends at Edenderry Harbour.
The harbour is an attractive mooring with loads of space & a tap. There are supermarkets nearby plus a vet as we needed booster jabs so we thought it’d do for a week or two… not quite knowing what was coming!!
As you can see plenty of moorings!! There are very few boats in Ireland compared to the Uk & virtually none moving.
A few days after we arrived the big announcement came that Ireland was going into full lockdown & the waterways was closed to navigation. The Ireland dream came to a grinding halt!!
We ended up staying about 4 weeks at Edenderry. Mum was very sad & felt very on her own but we did our best to cheer her up.
The weather was really nice but as we were on such a public footpath we couldn’t even sit out so we were stuck in our boat in all the glorious sunshine apart from walkies each day. We had a nice time up & down the towpath & often cooled off with a dip in the canal.
Luckily on facebook a nice lady called Alison who has a beagle called Buster put mum in contact with Sean who owns some of the moored boats further down the arm. Both Sean & his wife Ger popped round a few times to check on mum which made her feel a million times better. Sean also helped mum get her new Irish gas bottle connected & fixed her leaking waterpump.
One of the highlights of our stay was moving across the water to the tap & mooring up next to the duck house that is locally called Duckingham Palace!! Only baby fanta bottles in it though!!
Across Easter mum had a lovely surprise when she found an anonymous Easter gift on the front of her boat & also a gentleman who ran past each day dropped off some cookies & flapjacks. We helped mum with those!
We drove to Edenderry when mum first arrived here in Ireland with auntie Joy & mum thought it looked a good spot for a night or two. Funny to think how somewhere I’d never heard of becomes so pivotal in your life as we’ll always remember Edenderry as where we spent lockdown. It’s a really nice little town & the people are really friendly. We grew quiet fond of Edenderry while we were there.
Some days we walked up the other side of the canal for a bit of variety. The children had laid out a trail of painted stones. We’re currently only allowed 2km from our home.
Despite the lockdown mum was as always incredibly busy. Through her ad-extra job she still has a fair number of customers & she was busy adapting their advertising campaigns for the coronavirus period. She took part in a number of airbnb online experiences including a secret houseboat concert in Amsterdam, learning how to do podcasts, an interior design workshop to get ideas of sprucing up our cratch & she even did meditation with sheep!!! She has been learning a new element for work so has done a course in that & has also taught herself to crochet so she can make a blanket for me to chew!! She hasn’t watched much TV but she has been playing computer games, listening to TED podcasts & researching the Irish waterways routes for when we’re released. Oh & she painted the gas locker lid red to match the rest of the boat. But she still hasn.t cleaned the boat, got fit or done her accounts which she intended to do lol!!
We did have another favourite walk which took us up above Edenderry so we had a fabulous view of the canal & the big bonus there was a castle up there. Now it was only a little castle & it was fenced off but it was a castle!!
Blundell Castle: The Castle dates from the 15th Century when it was constructed by the De Berminghams as a rectangular tower house consisting of three storeys. In the 16th Century it passed to the Cooley family whose name gave Edenderry it’s former title, Coolestown. The Castle came under attack during the nine years war by the O’Neill clan and by 1659 it was under new ownership by George Blundell, whose family held the said ownership until the 18th Century. The Castle was attacked once again in 1691 by the forces of James II, it suffered badly and afterwards began it’s descent into ruin. Today only the East and South walls remain standing exposing some of the innards.
Now although we were doing Ok in Edenderry mum was starting to stress our about the toilet filling. The government had said the current lockdown was till 5th may & we may have just lasted but then we got notification from Waterways Ireland that the closure was being extended to 31st May. Mum nearly had a coronary until she read the sentence that said you could now move for pumpout facilities. Unfortunately with the one at Lowtown only working with WI operating it we were still a bit stuck. Mum messaged Gerry at Lowtown to see if that was still the case & he came back & said Alan the lockie would do it & lock 20 for me. Waterways Ireland to the rescue again. Now I swear to God mum received that message & within ten minutes the tiller arm was on, engine started & we were on our way. Ok so it’s only back to Lowtown for pumpout but its very exciting to have a change of scene for a day or two.
As it turned out we were away for a lot longer than that but that’s for the next blog.
I’ll leave you with a nice photo of Edenderry harbour in the sunset.
Now we’re afloat in Ireland it was time to find our way around our new life. To us Ireland has a more European feel than an English feel. Of course mum is having to pay for our biscuits in euros, some of the signs are in Irish, we’re currently on data roaming & everyone talks with the wonderful Irish lilt.
Within an hour of being on the water several boaters had been by to say hello. We were struck immediately by their friendliness & helpfulness even despite us barking at them. Martin from Waterways Ireland also popped by & said he’d return soon with lock Keys for us.
We’re currently not in an ideal mooring spot as we’re on the pumpout but given it’s broken anyway we’re not inconveniencing anyone. With the imminent arrival of Storm Jorge we just tightened the ropes & added spring lines & mum deemed we wouldn’t move till after the storm had passed. We were all quite scared as we’d not seen forecasts like this in England but as it came & went it actually wasn’t too bad though we were quite sheltered down a steep bank.
Mum & Auntie Joy did quite a lot of exploring & shopping whilst we had a car available. Of course they had to test the Irish pubs out!
The cost of living is much higher over here but some boating costs are cheaper. Mum bought a waterways smart card from the nearby garage which is used up on the Shannon for the electric locks as well as for things like toilet emptying (charges for both chemical & pumpout here), showers & soon to be introduced payable rubbish disposal.
So this card cost 12 euros 70 & is a 20 unit card. pumpout is 2 units so considerably cheaper than U.K. (when it’s working) which is about £20. But in the U.K. we don’t pay for Elsan or rubbish disposal. Mum has pumpout So gains here & also has a compost/waterless toilet too onboard so shouldn’t ever be stuck or she’ll Have to use doggie bags like us! But these new bins are nearby at Sallins where you pay per bag but they’re not currently wired up & operational. In Ireland householders pay a company to collect their rubbish so it kind of follows that boaters can’t dispose of it for free. Incredibly the country so far that we’ve seen has been relatively litter free which is not good for us as we like scavenging. Here’s the new bins coming in…
The waterpoints are free but everyone moors on them so a bit tricky to access. We managed to reverse back & breast up & get water in the hail & wind as we’d not wanted to be very full of water & increase the weight coming over.
The rules & etiquette over here are much more relaxed. You’re kind of supposed to move every 5 days here but so far we’ve only seen a trip boat moving & everyone else not moved for weeks even months. We learnt that the season doesn’t start till St Patrick’s Day so no one really moves till then apart from one mad Englishwoman with 2 golden retrievers! Also when I asked about the 8 to 8 engine rule that wasn’t known about either.
So whilst we had the car as Auntie Joy Is with us till Tuesday mum did lots of exploring. Firstly they went & sussed out the next 2 locations along the Grand Canal Robertstown & Lowtown. There was space at Robertstown but Lowtown was choccabloc. So mum decided once the weather has passed that’s where we’d head as it had some little shops too.
Lowtown
Mum also had a look at an Irish Lock to see how difficult they are to singlehand. It was deemed this particular one would be impossible for mum to do. However, each section has lock keepers so when we’re there we’ll need to ring for help. But we’ll cover locks in more detail in the next blog.
After that we also checked out Edenderry where there’s going to be an Easter rally which we’re hoping to attend. We really liked it there plenty of space moorings & shops.
The above map shows the section of waterways we’re on. We’re on the Grand Canal at Sallins. The Naas branch & its 5 locks are currently closed for winter maintenance so we’ll come back & do that another time. Robertstown is west on the Grand then Lowtown is by L19 at the junction of The Grand & The Barrow Line. The Barrow is Canal at the top then bevones the Barrow river further south at Athy. Edenderry is down its own little branch further along The Grand Canal.
Mum is still undecided which way we are going & is waiting to get dates of the rallies so we can join in those but we are aiming to be back around this area to join the big Dublin Rally which crosses the River Liffey in May.
We also went down & explored Athy on another rainy day. The River Barrow is currently very much in flood resembling more of a lake than a river!
Naas is a fairly large town & has a much needed Three shop or Tree shop as the Irish say. We’re on an unlimited contract in the U.K. both on a wireless router for days & another for the phone. Mum likes to have two as she needs Internet for work & next venue how many phones have been dropped in the Cut it’s good to have a backup. Now we’re over here in Ireland the router & SIM card don’t be work at all & the phone is capped at 20Gb on data roaming. This has devastated mum as she daren’t play her Pokémon in case it uses all her data up. She is now however very happy as in the Three shop she managed to get an unlimited data, texts & calls SIM for 20 euros a month. We are going to have to switch to an Irish mobile no of course though. So mum also bought a cheap secondhand phone which she’s going to use her U.K. SIM in & switch the to PAYG so she can keep that no & use it if she comes back to the UK at any point. She’s now happily back playing Pokemon which keeps us happy as we get longer walkies while she’s hatching Pokemon eggs.
But the best day was Sunday. Mum & Auntie Joy deemed enough sorting out boat stuff & they Day was fun day & a huge reward for us being so good. So we were taken off to Sandymount Beach near Dublin where there was miles of sand for us t free run & run we did. We had such a brilliantly fun time running, paddling & digging. Happy days.
Check out our next blog to find out how we got on on our first cruise on Irish waterways doing the locks to Robertstown.
Golden Boyz Narrowboat Blog 