Like most things boating related, there has to be an element of planning. You can’t just pull up the anchor, or untie your mooring lines, and set off with no idea of where you’re going or what you’re going to do. Trips or cruises on the canals have to be planned because your boat isn’t plumbed into the mains water supply. When you flush the toilet it doesn’t magically disappear never to be seen again. You have to top up your onboard water tank; you have to empty your toilet – be it a pump out or cassette – which means you do get really close to your s….., well, you know what we mean!
So whilst narrowboat life can seem idyllic, it does need a bit of forward planning. The same need for planning is true of vlogging on YouTube.
“We need to visit a canal.” Said Tony. “Our nearest one isn’t that far away.”
A GRAND DAY OUT!
Our nearest canal, if you discount all other waterways, is actually the Grand Union in Northampton. A two hour drive away. In fact, Blisworth (home to the famous tunnel) and Stoke Bruerne (at the other end of the tunnel) is the closest and, more often than not, quite busy, so we would be sure of filming some narrowboats going through the lock flight and also through the tunnel.
Location agreed, we set off and found an out-of-the-way place to park. But this was the first time we had actually filmed anything outdoors and we would have to “walk and talk” to the camera! I think more through nerves than anything else, led Tony to make a balls-up of the camera settings. So if that particular vlog looks a bit over exposed, especially the parts around Blisworth…..it’s his fault! To be fair, we captured quite a lot of action in only a few hours and by chance, a lovely volunteer, ROB WESTLAKE, at the Canal Museum in Stoke Bruerne, provided us with an on camera interview about the history of the working boat moored outside – Sculptor.
We stopped off to slake our thirst at a lovely little pub in Blisworth called The Royal Oak. Two months prior to our visit, and during lock down, a couple from the Isle of White had taken it over and started to renovate it. If nothing else, you have to admire their determination to make a go of it under such extreme circumstances. If the standard of their ales is anything to go by, they should do a roaring trade and the hospitality was first class. We made a mental note to stop there when we finally get our own narrowboat!
Stoke Bruerne was especially busy, but we managed to capture plenty of footage for our next Vlog, including a narrowboat that had snagged it’s moorings and was halfway across the canal! Thankfully, two guys from a nearby boat helped to tie it back up to the pin that had previously been hammered into the ground.
THE NORFOLK BROADS – WATER ON OUR DOORSTEP!
Whilst scratching our heads thinking of where next to film, we suddenly realised that whilst our nearest canal is several miles away, we do have a body of water right on our doorstep….over 120 miles of navigable waterways and only half an hour away!
So, kit packed, Tony ventured to Horning to get some B-Roll footage and scout Wroxham to see how busy it would be. Remember, holidaying in the UK has seen an increase due to all of the overseas travel restrictions, so it was likely to be busy. Perhaps not as busy as Tony had expected!
Despite this we thought it would be worthwhile trying to compare The Broads with the canals. We had a bit of a disastrous holiday many years ago when the girls were younger and hired a boat on the Broads thinking it would be the same as holidays we’d had on the canals.
Well, we must have moored in the wrong place, because it was miles to the nearest pub and when we did get their they wouldn’t allow children in and we were exiled to the games room for the evening. I think you could say we weren’t impressed with the lack of moorings with just miles and miles of reeds and grass. Don’t get us wrong, it is so beautiful and picturesque, but when you have two bored youngsters with you on a small cruiser, it’s not fun!
We took out a hire boat for a couple of hours hoping to go from Wroxham to Horning – a very popular route and boy was it busy on the river! We must have seen every possible type of craft apart from a Wherry which Jan was upset about(!) But, we were able to get acres of footage that we could assemble into a vlog. It caused a bit of a discussion on our YouTube page and we were reminded that there are indeed many places to moor and plenty of riverside pubs! Obviously we missed them when we had our original holiday…doh! Ah, well, lesson learnt and we would go on to make up for it in our next vlog…
POTTERING AROUND POTTER HEIGHAM
We had instantly decided that one trip on The Broads wasn’t enough to give people an overall perspective of the different landscapes and scenery that can be experienced. So for our second Broads trip we went to Potter Heigham and took a three hour cruise to St.Benet’s Abbey where we stopped to soak up the history and the calmness of the surroundings.
This was a really lovely trip, again a wide variety of boats and what did we see???
Yes, not one, but three narrowboats! We guessed that these must have been transported here because The Broads is largely land locked and access from anywhere else is only possible via the sea – not a trip you’d want to undertake in a narrowboat!
We also spotted something called The Dutch Tutch.
If you haven’t already guessed it by the look of the 8 sides, it was part of a helter skelter that stood on Britannia Pier in Great Yarmouth. After a fire on the pier it was salvaged and shipped up the Broads, but as it couldn’t get under Potter Heigham bridge, it stayed where it was, by the river! We talk about it in one of our Broads vlogs.
LETS PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
Editing all these videos is very time consuming even though Tony used to work in television production. He had some training in editing, but on a completely different system, Avid, and here he was rapidly learning a new piece of software, Davinci Resolve. Thankfully, the work flow is almost identical to Avid and there are tons of resources online, not least some tech channels on YouTube. (I think Tony has a man crush on Mr Alex Tech because aside from Narrowboat vids, he is always watching his channel – the fact Alex is also a fellow Midlander might have something to do with it!)
We soon found we had some footage left over from our two Broads cruises, so we thought it would be a good idea, since many people love the Broads, that we put together a video of all the unseen footage into a 20 minute, non vlog – so to speak, We’re not in it, but the beautiful views, vistas, boats and water certainly are and we hope you find it relaxing. Hopefully it takes away all the cares and stress of the World we currently find ourselves in.
