End of Garden Mooring

Thoughts of a move had started way back in June. It began with a discussion of money and just how much we could potentially save if we weren’t paying mooring fees. Experiencing a nomadic existence around Cheshire, could we continuous cruise (CC) with Shell being on the boat all day?

The block on this idea in the past had been security. Regularly being away from the boat would leave us prone to vandalism, robbery or worse. So it had always been a desire but never seemingly achievable with us both working full time. And then Covid, and we, along with the rest of the world, had our lives changed forever by the pandemic. And we realised with one of us at home our desire to be truly nomadic was within our grasp.

Plans started to emerge, we started a list of things we would need to address before we could release the mooring ropes and realistically travel the canal. We were looking at beefing up security, increasing water capacity, mooring spots where we could realistically park both cars, looking at solar and wind to charge the leisure battery bank. It was a bit daunting to be frank. One big shock to emerge from this planning was just how poor the boaters facilities are in and around the salt towns that would naturally have become our haunt, Northwich, Sandbach, Middlewich and Nantwich.

Planning was done, list was made and then Shell was told that she would be required to return to the office for at least part of the week. This put us in a quandary. Do we still try to CC and hope that the security we were planning would suffice? Or do we hole up for the winter months and prepare for our nomadic dreams with time and proper planning?

Why don’t we just stay at Oakwood? This obviously would have been the easy thing to do, we have been very happy there. However, that was before the camping, glamping and motorhomes began to arrive. Understandably the owners of Oakwood have developed the site in to a great space for people looking to escape for days or weeks at a time. There is now catering in the evenings at the weekend, quiz nights, day boat hire there is even a bar. All the facilities we love when we are away on holiday, but we aren’t on holiday. This is our home and we no longer liked the hustle and bustle of the ‘marina’, it had gotten to busy! We were telling kids to stop jumping on our boat, we had campers walking down the pontoon gongoozling into our home. Dare I say it, on certain weekends parking had once again become an issue. So we had ruled out staying. If we had too we would cruise and wing it as we went along.

As time went by we agreed a new strategy. We would find somewhere to moor and prepare through Winter. We began to research what else was available in and around Cheshire, and could we get a cheaper mooring for the winter months? We weren’t especially confident as we were getting closer to the colder days and we believed most marinas would be fully booked. This was the case in 50% of our research. We also looked at official CRT canal side moorings that have no facilities but allow you to stay in one spot on the network. There are a couple of sites in Cheshire that are on the opposite side to the towpath and have limited facilities but trying to find one available was nigh on impossible. So are there other options?

If you have seen our interview with Sophia, and her exquisite hand built studio, then you will know just how envious we were of the space she has at the Golden Nook Farm Moorings in Waverton near Chester. She had space for her studio, some storage a garden and log store. Something we have talked about often, just a little bit of land to try and live as sustainably as possible and living off grid, and being self sufficient. So we rang them, and as we suspected were placed on a waiting list.

And then we got a call. It was Golden Nook. We were mid way through a training walk for the Slate Trail, and we were our natural hesitant selves when the phone rang. Luckily Shell had saved the owners number so we knew who was calling. Shell eventually answered. And it was as if all our Christmas’s came at once. There is a mooring available, and its been pretty well looked after, do you still want one? YES!! it was that resounding! So hastily made viewing arrangements were made for the next day, Sunday at 8.00am.

I wont spoil the plot we have. we will be doing a walk through of what we have and what we want to do as a part of our Winter sustainability series (hoping we come up with a catchier title)

So what do we have? Its commonly known as an ‘end of garden mooring’. This is, as the name suggests, what people apply for if they have a garden or private land that backs on to the canal and want to moor their boat. As the water way is still managed by the Canal and River Trust, you have to rent this from them, thus the term ‘end of garden’. In our case it isn’t a garden but a field. We have to keep open access for further along the towpath, but we have some outside space that we can call our own.

It’s going to involve a lot of change and we have some immediate struggles with batteries and the poor state of the out buildings that have been left. All of which will be covered over the Winter series on our YouTube channel - Chris and Shell.