The proposed route for 2009 was the Four Counties Ring and The Llangollen Canal. We had booked with Black Prince Holidays (again), starting on Saturday 1st August from the Festival Park Marina, Etruria, Stoke on Trent, and returning on Saturday 15th August. Little did I know that when I visited the Stoke-on Trent Garden Festival in 1986, that I would return to start a boating holiday from there.

This year we decided to base our two week canal holiday on the Warwickshire Ring. After planning the route we still had time available so we made a few changes during the trip.

A little info about me my name is Peter I live on the Staffordshire /Cheshire border near to a place called Mowcop which has a distinctive landmark in the form of a castle. I have recently started to do a lot of walking on the canals within Wales and the Border Counties and have also got a keen interest in taking photographs that show just how lovely our canals are. I now have a large collection of photos, and I have recently started to post some photos on the Boats & Canals Forum and have completed articles for the site on towpath walks.

Having received a request from your site to post photos I thought it would be nice to post an article including photos which I hope your readers will enjoy.

Queen Elizabeth II opened the Falkirk Wheel on 24th May 2002 as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations. The opening had been delayed by a month due to flooding caused by vandals who forced open the Wheel's gates.

The first canal holiday I had was for 2 weeks with three friends, being our first trip we didn’t know what to expect of the boat, but it was very basic . It was so long ago that I don’t remember most of the details. The boat was hired from Deans Pleasure Boats, Christleton on the Shropshire Union Canal. We were given very basic instructions and off we went to tackle our very first locks, the Iron and Stone Locks at Beeston.