Ready to go

Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go… for our first three-month leg of our gap year.

After weeks of building, painting, sewing, cleaning and planning, our boat, Galveston is ready.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve installed better lighting, replaced the 1970’s leaky kitchen and bathroom taps, made new curtains, built a book shelf, replaced the water pump, added panelling, cleaned the bilges, finished painting the outside of the boat, stocked up with food, drink and fuel, and on Sunday morning we’ll be off!

First destination – Banbury – 26 Miles up the Oxford canal to Tooleys boatyard for blacking, service, hull survey and sign writing.

After that we’ll whizz up to Napton, then onto the Grand Union to gently make our way to London and back to Oxford via the Thames. We’ll pay close attention to locations mentioned in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat.

If time allows, we’ll “turn left at Reading” and take the Kennet and Avon to Bath, with a view to being back in Oxford in mid-July.