Moonraker Canalboats website has not been updated for some time and is confusing. Moonshadow has not run on a Saturday since 2022 and the point of departure is now The Barge Inn at Seend Cleeve not Honey Street Wharf as shown on the map and detailed in the About Us/ What’s Next Section of the website. As we were not made aware of this until a week before our departure, we had to change our route planning at the last minute to travel west to Bath rather than east to Newbury to avoid days spent navigating the Caen Hill flight. Unfortunately, moorings along this section of the Kennet and Avon Canal are now largely taken by permit holders and/or live aboarders meaning there is little available mooring along the canal particularly for widebeam canalboats. The lack of mooring space at The Barge Inn for leaving Moonshadow on our return similarly proved a constant worry throughout our holiday. All Moonraker canalboats are advertised with bow thrusters and central heating. Unfortunately, neither worked from the outset and the logs supplied for the log burner were too big and damp to be of use so we had to buy our own, kiln dried and much smaller logs to fuel the much needed log burner. Some light fittings were pretty dodgy and the door to the tumble drier was broken and had to be propped closed in order for it to work. Thank goodness it did work as it was the only way we could dry towels in the absence of central heating and working towel rails. The shower drain and bathroom sink in the ensuite did not work from Day 1 although this problem was promptly addressed before we left Bradford on Avon on Day 2. I do not want to sound too negative and I know that the obvious problem of lack of available moorings on the Bradford on Avon/Bath section of the K&A Canal is out of Moonraker Canalboats control but Moonraker Canalboats advertise a luxury canalboat holiday experience which it could have been had the boat been better maintained and we had been made aware of the limited availability of suitable moorings.

We hired narrowboat Sacha from Sally Narrowboats at Bradford on Avon. We travelled first to Bath and then East to Great Bedwyn before returning to Bradford on Avon. Our party of seven adults from Australia were looking forward to conquering the Caen Hill locks and enjoying the reputed beauty of the K&A, having done several other UK canals in the past. The boat was ready on our arrival and we were able to get set up on board and depart after a briefing without any issues. The Sally Narrowboat staff, both on our arrival and on return were courteous and very helpful as we battled with luggage and supplies. The boat was clean and well equipped for our 11 day confined space adventure. The K&A canal itself is another matter. In general we found the canal sides to often be too overgrown to allow mooring with most potential mooring spaces taken up by live aboards in various states of tidiness. Finding moorings near popular spots such as Honey Street, Seend Cleve and Devizes was near impossible. Sections of the canal East of Devizes are overgrown with reeds reducing to a clear waterway of one boat width. We were dissappointed to find the canal in many areas did not live up to its reputation, but if you do choose this canal then we recommend Sally Narrowboats at Bradford on Avon as your boat provider.

We booked a narrowboat for the weekend which is something we have not done before. We planned our route as carefully as we could, trying to estimate journey times and looking for pubs along the route where we could have an evening meal. The boat hire itself was very good - we boarded at Honeystreet with Honeystreet Boats. The owner John was very helpful and we were given a fairly comprehensive induction as to how to handle the boat (although a bit more instruction on locks would have been useful). The boat was well equipped and comfortable. So we were all set for a lovely relaxing weekend.....or so we thought! The first realisation was that in order to follow the route we had chosen we would have to find a turning point on the canal on the last evening of our holiday but unfortunately there aren't many of these which meant we had to shorten our journey and turn back on ourselves on the last day which ended up being a rush to find a mooring before it got dark. That brings me to the moorings.... we were told that visitor moorings are limited but we could 'moor anywhere' along the canal not taken up by permanent moorings. Ha! What they didn't tell us, however, was that the bank was inaccessible in many places due to reeds, nettles and weeds and that even with a plank to make a walkway from the boat to the bank, large sections of the bank were too steep to support this. On the second night this resulted in me trying to jump from the boat to the bank to moor up but because part of the bank was not visible due to thick undergrowth, I couldn't get my footing and I slipped part way down the bank and fell flat on my face. Fortunately I only had a pulled muscle in my arm and a bruised chest - it could have been a lot worse. And then there's the pubs.... in short, it's almost impossible to moor anywhere near the pubs, when you do you can't get a table unless you have booked well ahead and forget trying to get a meal on a Sunday evening as they all close for food at 3pm - even on the tourist trail in the middle of August!! Then we come to the locks... we did 8. My husband had some experience of doing this before so we thought we would be ok. Going uphill through a series of 4 locks from outside Pewsey up towards the Bruce Tunnel was fine BUT, on the way back down one of the lock gates got stuck. We tried for ages to move it but it wouldn't budge. We were worried that we would get stuck there because......Good Old England, even in the height of summer the locks close at 3.30pm so we had to be back through them by then otherwise we would have had to moor up there for the night and be late taking our boat back the next day. In the end we managed to get a passer by to help us open the gate - he said he had had the same problem with the same gate a short while before that. Oh, and although some people we met were very friendly you can tell that some of the locals really don't like the weekenders coming along and disturbing their peace. Some were very grumpy with some of them shouting at us to slow down when we were only ticking over (which is what we were told to do when going near moored boats). Overall, not the relaxing holiday we had hoped for in spite of the boat company being super helpful.