West Country Visit One of the advantages of being the Region Chairman is that you get invited to join the branches on their events and trips. This year Janine and I joined Chiltern Branch on their much delayed, because of Covid, visit to the west country, over the weekend of the17th to 19th of September. The coach was leaving Watford at 7:15 on Friday morning so there was no way we could get there in time to catch it, as we live in Chelmsford in Essex. We decided to drive down to the West Country the night before and stop at Burnham on Sea. We stayed in a hotel where I used to stay when I was working in the area. The building and rooms have been modernised but the food was as good as I remember. Friday September 17th 2021. After checking out of the hotel we a drove around Highbridge and then set off for the Grand Western Canal at Tiverton, arriving before the coach was due. Getting out of our car, at the carpark by the canal, we literally bumped into the National Chairman, Paul Rogers. He was on his way home from Cornwall and had decided to stop as there were problems on the motorway and had parked his car right next to ours! Arriving early gave us a chance to do some sightseeing and have a look around the visitors centre. Then, after we had lunch at the tea rooms, we walked back through the car park to wait for the coach to arrive.
The Grand Western Canal is on an embankment at this point with limekilns along the side making a wall for the carpark. This is the base of the Tiverton boat company. Having met up with the Chiltern Branch members we walked with them up the steps to join the horse drawn boat the “Tivertonian” for a two and a half hours cruise along the canal. For this trip the “Tivertonian” was pulled by a lovely 13yr old Shire horse, named Ross. At the half way point of the trip, we stopped. The boat winded and tied up onto the jetty. We alighted for 20 minutes to have a look round and to walk up to the bridge to get a better look back to take photos. The other horse handler Lauran, talked to us about the horses. We stroked Ross and told him how hard working he had been this afternoon, pulling us and the boat along. She also told us that when a horse had finished work for the day, he ran around and around in his field galloping for joy. We passed under several bridges and at each one, there was a notice stuck on the wall addressed to cyclists, asking them to dismount, as they came up close to Ross, as the horse wouldn’t be able to stop. They all, very obediently dismounted from their cycles to let Ross through.
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