Hail to the Hive!

It’s good to be back on the canals. It’s good to be living back on a narrowboat. It’s also good that the weather has finally decided it might want to be summer after all, so we’ve revisited the massive flight of locks at Caen Hill in Wiltshire.

In this series of monochromatic shots I’ve focused more on the lock gates themselves rather than the scenery around.

When we first started living on the canals we were ever so slightly concerned about having to negotiate our way through these big beasts unaided but they are relatively simple to operate, if a little heavy sometimes.

It’s actually incredible that these are all still in operation over 200 years after being originally constructed. I always refer to the system as a living breathing museum that you can live in, travel on and use on a daily basis. Quite remarkable when you think about it.

You move slowly (4mph) and the locks slow you up even more as you climb up or down the landscape but it’s such a wonderfully sedate way to travel.

And Imalso love their industrial, historic aesthetic. They’re great to photograph and as I travel around the network I am constantly snapping away at scenes that I am crawling through at a sedated pace. It’s perfect.

We are now only about 2 and a half weeks away from setting out on our adventures again and getting quite excited about it and a little nervous about the new locks and yet to be explored rivers and canals.

Can’t wait!

Love a bit of #monomad 😜