« Llangollen Canal Cruising Map is Published

UKWRS Report for October 2011 »

Our Canal DVDs make great ideas for Christmas Presents, but please remember to order in time.

The Post Office publish latest recommended posting dates for Christmas and you need to order from us by these dates:

UK -- Monday 19th December
Western Europe -- Sunday 11th December
Eastern Europe -- Thursday 8th December
USA/Canada -- Thursday 8th December
Rest of World -- Sunday 4th December

If you order from us after these dates we will still post the order promptly, but is unlikely to arrive in time for Christmas. The earlier you order, the more certain you can be of arrival in time for Christmas.

« UKWRS Report for June 2011

Droitwich Canals DVDs »

We're moored at Stourton Junction where the swan tried to see how far into the boat it could reach and surprise Susan. Look at the reflection in the door glass to see how big Susan's smile is.

Looking to the bottom right you will see one explanation for the recent lack of blogs this trip. During Monday evening, while moored at Hanbury Junction, Susan turned quicker than her kneecap could and dislocated it. We had great "fun" while the ambulance crew tried to extricate her from a narrowboat, sending for specialist help when they realised how difficult it would be. A trip to Worcester Hospital saw her return with crutches and a splint and Wednesday saw another hospital follow up visit. She's slowly shuffling around the boat now, and managing to stand for a few minutes to steer a few locks.

We were out filming the recently opened Droitwich Canals for a new DVD which we hope to be ready for the IWA festival at the end of the month, although that's a very optimistic timescale. We've eventually finished the filming and we're heading back to our home mooring at Sherborne Wharf, in Birmingham.

While you're waiting for the new DVD there's still the Droitwich Canals (under restoration) DVD showing the start of the final phase of restoration in 2008, and the very popular free map of the Droitwich Canals too.

« Thank You

Droitwich Junction Canal »

Tony Blews' UK Waterways Ranking Site (UKWRS) records the hits on sites registered with UKWRS and publishes a score for the number of hits in the previous seven days.

I've been recording the scores from UKWRS each day for around 14 months and we can look back to see how sites have changed over the year - and compare how they are doing compared to last year.

There are just seven sites which have been in the top 20 every day during 2010. Many others have been and gone during the year as scores fluctuate with, for example, Captain Ahab’s Watery Tales making just one appearance in the top 20 (on 23rd January).

Let's have a look at those seven sites and how they changed during the year, and compared to last year.

Jim Shead’s Waterways Information

A wealth of information covering almost anything waterways you can think of.

Just Canals – Forums

A consistent performer with a peak during the snow in January when, perhaps, people were "working at home".

Pennine Waterways

Describing themselves as - Canals of the South Pennines - UK canal information, history, photographs, virtual cruise

Granny Buttons

Andrew Denny's own private thoughts and ignorance about the canals and waterways. (And no-one else's, except as quoted.)

CanalPlanAC – Canal Route Planner

An interactive guide to the inland waterways of Europe, it plans journeys, calculates the length (distance, number of locks, time taken etc) of your trip and shows gazetteer information on places along the way (pubs, shops and museums).

A remarkable year on year improvement with scores mored than doubled.

Canal Cuttings

Information and features about canals, navigable rivers and their usage.

Joined the UKWRS site just as I started logging the data.

Waterway Routes – DVDs and Maps of Canals and Waterways

Our own, wonderful, site showing a healthy year on year improvement.

I have scores for all sites on UKWRS since November 2009 so please let me know if you would like to see the scores for your site.

« Selly Oak Aqueduct

UKWRS Monthly Report for December 2010 »

Thank you to all our customers, friends and family for your support throughout the year.

We've had lots of fun producing DVDs and posting them out before Christmas. I do hope they've all arrived - nobody has said they haven't, despite all the snow.

We've enjoyed meeting you all too, while we were out cruising and filming, at exhibitions, or elsewhere.

« UKWRS report for November

Witham Navigable Drains »

Hopefully most of you will be surprised to find we're back as you won't have known we've been gone.

Regrettably some of you will have noticed our website was missing, or at least had problems accessing it.

For a few days we've been the subject of a denial of service (DOS) attack. That's when some malicious person requests so much information from our website and sends so many emails targeted at it, the server grinds to a halt.

We don't think it was targeted at us directly, but at one of the other users who shares the same server at our ISP. The ISP have been most helpful in managing the problem and moving us between servers but it will have meant a poor service from us for a little while.

It was made worse because one of the pair of drives in the RAID array (that's where our data is stored on two hard drives to guard against failure) gave up at the same time, possibly triggered by the exceptional workload from the DOS attack. The drive was hot-swapped by the ISP staff within minutes but it then took several hours to rebuild the new drive with a copy of the data from the remaining good one which made it even slower.

The good news is that we believe everything is back to normal now and I'm not aware of any data being lost. If you have had problems placing an order then please try again. If you are still finding problems, or you've placed an order that we haven't acknowledged, then please let us know.

We know we've missed quite a lot of visitors because our web stats and scores on the UK Waterways ranking site have dropped unusually low. Hopefully we're scoring normally again now.

« Fantastic Service

Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats »

Becks DVDs, supplier of many specialist DVDs, now stocks most of our Popular and Combined DVDs.

If you are looking for an alternative mail order supplier, or purchasing other DVDs for Christmas then you might find all you are looking for in one place.

You can still buy the full range from our own web pages, and from The Canal Shop Company.

« Seasonal and Unseasonal Changes

Fantastic Service »

I've just looked at Tony Blews' UK Waterways Ranking Site and spotted this twittering from him.

BBC Radio 4 has just broadcast Landscape With Canals and Machines: The Legacy of LTC Rolt and it's available to listen again for 6 more days on the iPlayer. So listen quickly before this expires.

It covers all sorts of information about his life, including the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.

« We draw maps

Seasonal and Unseasonal Changes »

The blog has been rather quiet recently while I put my efforts into the updated website which went live this afternoon.

The format is very different, but most of the content is the same, simply transferred from old to new.

The new format is easier to update and maintain and I can start adding additional content as soon as I’m sure everything is working.

Browse around the site and please tell me if you spot anything which isn’t working, or if you have any suggestions for further improvements.

The old pages are still there, so don’t worry if you’ve linked to them. Eventually I’ll put in redirects to the new pages and phase the old ones out.

I’m keeping the blog in the old style for a little while, until I’m sure the new format is working, then I plan to convert that too.

« UKWRS Report for September

We draw maps »

Our Canal DVDs make great ideas for Christmas Presents, but please remember to order in time.

The Post Office publish latest recommended posting dates for Christmas and you need to order from us by these dates:

UK: Monday 20th December
Europe: Thursday 9th December
USA/Canada: Thursday 9th December
Rest of World: Sunday 5th December

If you order from us after these dates we will still post the order promptly, but is unlikely to arrive in time for Christmas. The earlier you order, the more certain you can be of arrival in time for Christmas.

« Apparent Copyright Theft

Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal »

When boaters fill their boat with diesel they have to make a declaration about how much of the fuel will be used for propulsion, as that is taxed at a higher rate than fuel used for domestic use.

That is a legal declaration that says "I declare that [ ]% of the fuel purchased will be used for propelling a private pleasure craft" Note that is a declaration about what the fuel being put into the tank then will be used for - and NOT what you used the last lot of fuel for.

The HMRC Legal Page explains what the law says and reading that may give you all the information you need.

Try our Diesel Declaration and Fuel Duty Page! if you’d like further information and debate about what a reasonable estimated percentage might be.

It may be different from the advice your mate gives you down at the pub, or even different from what you see others doing, but it might make you better informed to make a more reasonable estimate.

« The ups and downs of life

Diesel Declaration »

A sideline, which comes from that hard work, is the production of maps.

These were initially drawn to put on my website and on the cover of the DVD boxes but now form an additional source of income by drawing maps for others for a small fee.

Occasionally I am asked if someone can use one of my maps and I usually grant permission for personal use in return for a link to show Waterway Routes as the source.

I record a continuous GPS trace as we cruise along the canals each day and theses are used as the basis for the maps I draw. They are supplemented by research trips on foot or bike, also recording GPS traces. I do not take materials from maps produced by others without their permission as that would be copyright theft.

That’s fine, so far.

Look at the two maps shown here. The first (red) map is the one I carefully produced for our BCN DVDs. The base for this map was our own GPS traces from when we filmed the BCN and cruised all of the routes. The map was then distorted slightly, so that the loops and routes of the BCN could be fitted into the small map. That distortion means the map is no longer exactly to scale but it does show things more clearly and – most importantly – means the map is unique.

Now look at the second (blue) map which is taken from another canal blog. If you click on the maps to enlarge them next to each other you will see the canals are identical. The bloggers have taken the map from our website, or scanned it from the cover of a DVD, and coloured it blue. That appears to be a clear theft of copyright material.

Just to make it worse they have added "(c) <Blog name> 2010" on top of my map and claimed it as theirs. Elsewhere on the page there are links to other sources of information they have used in the post but no mention of Waterway Routes.

The bloggers appear to have used one of my maps without asking. They have not provided any credit to Waterway Routes as the source and they have claimed the copyright themselves. You cannot scan one of my maps, extract the BCN trace, re-colour it blue, add you own copyright notice and publish it by mistake. It’s not like accidently clicking on the wrong button somewhere – it’s several deliberate acts.

The last time I dealt with a breach of copyright I agreed that the guilty party would stop using the copyright material and make a donation of several hundred pounds to a relevant charity.

I make the same offer to these bloggers and suggest the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society (BCNS) would be the best organisation to receive the money. If these bloggers immediately remove all of my copyright material from their blog and website and make a substantial donation to the BCNS on behalf of Waterway Routes then I will not pursue this any further.

Why have they done this? I don’t know why they have taken material I am using to supply a little income for my pension - I can only guess

Perhaps they have no respect for the hard work of others and want to claim it themselves. Or perhaps they are desperate to boost their hit rate on Tony Blews’ great UK Waterways Ranking Site. If you browse around their site there are more images which appear to have come from other web sites and have also been claimed as (c) <Blog name>. I hope they have permission for all those others from the copyright owners.

If anyone else wishes to use any of my copyright material for personal use then please ask and I am very likely to grant permission in return for a suitable mention and link to our website. For commercial use we may charge a small, competitive fee.

Note: Since the bloggers have now removed my copyright material from their blog I have edited this post since first publication to make them anonymous. I hope they will also remove any other copyright material on their blog they have taken from others without permission.

« IWA Sales stock our Popular DVDs

Selly Oak Aqueduct »

Postage prices are going up on 6th April 2010.

The increases are significant, with the cost of a stamp for posting a DVD rising to 96p (from 78p this time last year) within the UK and even more for posting to Europe and the Rest of the World.

The cost of a regular first class stamp goes up from 39p to 41p.

Order by 5th April from our full range of DVDs and you’ll benefit from the lower postage rates.

« New Blog Address

Beat the Royal Mail postage increases »

Last week I dispatched a large box of DVDs to the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) Sales Office.

This week you can see them on their web pages ready for sale.

They have all our Popular range of Canal DVDs, including our very latest – the Cheshire Ring.

If you are looking for our DVDs then this is an alternative source, where you can also purchase lots of other canal related goodies.

« Matilda Rose comes to Birmingham

IWA Sales stock our Popular DVDs »

We have new address for our blog and feed.

When we first started blogging we used a temporary address, because our ISP did not support the blogging software at the main address.

Now, a recent change of ISP has allowed us to use more sensible addresses which are

Blog = www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/blog

Feed = www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/blog/feed

If you are using the old addresses including "balmeradsl" or "feedburner" then please change your bookmarks and any saved links to the new ones.

We will continue to run both in parallel for a while, but the old ones will eventually stop working so, when you get a quiet moment, please update your bookmarks.

« Cheshire Ring

Helpless Caxton »

We are moving our main website,www.waterwayroutes.co.uk between hosting companies. This should be a seamless transfer with no down time - but we all know what the real world is like.

We have already moved the alternative address www.waterwaywalks.co.uk to the new hosts so please use that if you have problems.

They both access the same content and the page structure is exactly the same so you can edit the address bar in your browser to change "routes" to "walks" if you get desperate.

Otherwise, please be patient and try again later.

« Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats 2010 Map

Let sleeping geese lie »

With snow all around the country we just have to follow everyone’s examples and post our own pictures of the snow, just in case you haven’t seen enough. After all, our readers from New Zealand and Australia won’t be having weather like this at the moment.

The frozen Rochdale Canal in Manchester, and the BCN in Birmingham and at Sherborne Wharf. There’s more pictures in the photo gallery for January 2010.

« Epiphany goes up in the world

Canal Voyagers Hotel Boats 2010 Map »

Thank you to all our customers, friends and family for your support throughout the year.

We've had lots of fun producing DVDs and posting them out before Christmas. I do hope they've all arrived - nobody has said they haven't.

We've enjoyed meeting you all too, while we were out cruising and filming, at exhibitions, or elsewhere.

« Selly Oak Aqueduct

Epiphany goes up in the world »

Christmas is not far away and if your stuck for a idea for a present then look no further than our great selection of DVDs.

There's still time to order them for UK delivery and we post them first class so you get them quickly.

They are good for holiday planning too, ready for next summer's cruise.
So, whether you are considering a gift for someone else, a treat for yourself, or planning next year's holiday then look at our full range of DVDs.

« Latest Ordering Dates for Christmas

Stopgates »

« Caldon Canal DVDs released

Finding our DVDs »

It’s 25th November and Christmas is just one month away on 25th December.

More importantly the latest posting dates for Christmas are even less than one month away.

The latest ordering date for our customers in Australia and New Zealand is just one week away.

We have a great range of Canal DVDs for Christmas Presents and we have plenty of stock of them all.

The latest dates for ordering for delivery before Christmas are:-

Thursday 18th December for UK

Wednesday 10th December for Western Europe

Monday 8th December for Eastern Europe, Japan, USA and Canada

Wednesday 3rd December for everywhere else.

If you order later than these dates we will still dispatch promptly but it is unlikely the order will arrive in time for Christmas.

« Small Bridge Signs

Latest Ordering Dates for Christmas »

Another great pair of canal DVDs are released from Waterway Routes in time for Christmas.

The Caldon Canal, considered by some to be the most scenic of canals, is cruised from Etruria Junction to Froghall where you can see if our boat fitted through the low profile of Froghall Tunnel or if we had to complete our journey on foot.

We also cruise along the Leek Branch, something that’s temporarily impossible after the breach earlier this month. It’s a good job we filmed in September while it was still open.

Now these DVDs are the only way you can reach the terminus of the Leek Branch with a boat.

These are 1/2 hour DVDs retailing at £9.95 for the Popular version (rather like a television programme) and £5.95 for the Bowcam version (a speeded up forward facing camera for a little fun).

There’s also a Combined version at £14.90, with both Popular and Bowcam in one box saving £1 on the separate prices (and at least 75p postage).

They are in stock now, just waiting for you to order them, or any from our great range of Canal DVDs.

« Past and Present

Small Bridge Signs »

Another pair of DVDs have just been released by Waterway Routes.

The Forth & Clyde and Union Canals DVDs have hit the streets in both Popular and Bowcam formats. As with all our other pairs of DVDs they are also available combined in one box.

They cover the Scottish Lowland canals between Edinburgh and Glasgow and, as a bonus, the Popular version also includes a trip along the River Clyde aboard the paddle steamer Waverley.

You can see extracts from the DVDs on YouTube from the links on the right.

Highlights of these cruises include:
> Rotating on the Famous Falkirk Wheel
> Descending the Staircase Locks at Falkirk
> Passing through the Dalmuir Drop Lock
> Lunch at McMonagles (watch the DVD to see why this is unique)

You can see more about these DVDs on their own page and see our full range of DVDs here.

I've just had the comments back from the proof watchers on the Caldon Canal Canals DVDs so I can finalise those over the next week or so, to make sure they are all ready for Christmas. The Caldon Canal was filmed before the breach on the Leek Branch this morning.

« Scottish Lowland Canals

Past and Present »

Once we pass 25th October, with 2 months to go, I start to think about Christmas. I think others start much earlier, and some are already planning their holiday for next year.

Have you spotted our advert on page 142 of the December Issue of Waterways World? It will be in Canal Boat magazine too.

Our full range of Canal DVDs are great for Christmas Presents and Holiday Ideas for anyone with an interest in canals and waterways.

« IWA National Festival 2009 is over

Froghall Tunnel »

« IWA National Festival 2009 – Saturday

Wrong DVD ? »