Slow Cruising

It’s hard to imagine just how slowly these canal barges go until you watch one up close. Note the guy in the lounger. Now that’s total relaxation!

I think they go about 5 mph.

When the canal was built (dug?) in the 1600s (that still boggles my mind) plane trees (what we know as sycamores) were planted along both banks. I’m sure there aren’t any 350 year-old trees still standing, but some of them are pretty old.

In this area quite a number have been cut down, and others are marked for the same fate. It’s sad to see a line of bare stumps. Happily, up by the port in Capestang there are a bunch of babies just starting out, so in another hundred years they’ll be reaching their arms across the water to each other.

Katherine’s coming tomorrow. Can’t wait!