Larry wrote:

mcamirand wrote in news:1178136944.191022.11930
:

Are these inland canals still in operation or have they been
abandoned in the last 70 years?

BBC had a wonderful documentary done by a guy who lived and traveled on a
barge pushed by his own little tugboat...er, ah, pushboat. The
documentary was done in segments and I watched it as it was posted to
alt.binaries.multimedia.documentaries a couple of years ago. It was a
wonderful series.

He met some really strange bureaucrats going over borders. For instance,
the German bureaucrats forced him to add this HUGE anchor and windlass to
the stern of his tugboat to comply with some strange regulation on the
Rhine River before he could get on it out of France. Of course, there
were dealers specialising in huge anchors and windlasses just waiting to
steal his money for the project so he could be on his way. That happened
in many places as borders were crossed.

Some of the bizarre locking systems and bathtub lifts that go up and down
massive incline railways up the sides of mountains in the Alps were just
fascinating. The documentary just stopped as these, sometimes very old,
systems were studied and videos made.

My fantasy is a longboat on the canals of the UK. I've a massive list of
websites found on Google. What a great way to spend an entire summer in
England....just putt putting around with the little diesels before the
world runs out of fuel, altogether.


My dream was to go over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/2d2ca/#TL But we didn't manage
that because it would have taken at least a week. We had to be
satisfied with a long weekend where my daughter, grandson and SIL
helped with the locks etc. We got my SIL to do it by promising that
he could visit the pubs along the way.
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4a9c6/4ca7d/