The beginning

In our 40’s now, and knowing for 10 years now that we were unable to have children, we’ve tried to make the most of our circumstances.  We’ve moved out of the city, reduced our working hours and travelled.

Following a visit to England in 2007 (and a very successful and enjoyable narrowboat hire) we started to consider the idea of spending a year or more cruising the canals.  We began reading narrowboating blogs, watching DVD’s, reading books and magazines.  The idea appealed to us more and more.  But how could we finance it? 

Eventually we came up with a plan.  We will sell our house and buy a cheaper one to free up money to finance the trip.  We’ll rent out our house while we are away (the cheaper one that is) which will cover costs back here in Australia.  We plan to free up enough money to buy a second hand boat and to live for a year.  We’ve allowed for everyday living costs, boat running costs and a kitty for emergency repairs etc.  If we manage to pick up some odd jobs along the way, and we survive our first English Winter, then maybe we’ll stay longer.  That’s the plan, now we’re looking for the right house.  We are aiming to be ready to go in about 2 years from now.  We have an elderly labrador to consider so it may be longer than that before we can leave.

Planning a year on a narrowboat in the UK, when you live on the other side of the world, isn’t easy.  We’re grateful for the email advice we’ve received from narrowboat bloggers we’ve made contact with over the last few years.

We thought it might be good to remember this process in years to come by keeping a blog ourselves.  It might also be of some assistance to other Australians or New Zealanders thinking of doing this too.  At first I thought it seemed a bit premature to be blogging about a dream but was pleased to see we aren’t alone.  I googled “narrowboat dream” and discovered someone else blogging about their dream : Narrowboat Dream

We won’t have regular narrowboat photos to post to our blog but hope other narrowboaters might contribute comments on the various topics we will talk about during this process.  We look forward to “meeting” you.

2007 : our favourite holiday memory