Celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Cheryl Howes of Kate Boats with the latest news from Drifters – a consortium of independent self-drive hire boat companies set up to promote enjoyment of canal holidays.
HERE at Drifters, we are looking forward to welcoming thousands of people for holidays afloat over the long weekend celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Over the course of her reign, Her Majesty the Queen has made a number of visits to the waterways and iconic waterside attractions.
In 1979, she visited what is now the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port and boarded a historic working boat. In 1990 she officially reopened the magnificent flight of locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal at Caen Hill.
In 2002 the Queen officially opened the Falkirk Wheel, connecting the Union and the Forth & Clyde canals in Scotland. And she returned to Scotland in 2017 to open the new Queen Elizabeth II Canal, linking the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Firth of Forth.
Drifters offers canal boat holidays from bases at, or close to, all these iconic waterway locations.
Our waterways have changed dramatically over the course of our monarch’s extraordinary 70-year reign. They’ve gone from post-war decline and dereliction to an incredible renaissance. They now provide a leisure resource for millions of visits every year, vital green corridors for wildlife and a sustainable source of energy production.
No doubt our beautiful and vibrant network of inland waterways will continue to adapt and become ever more important for communities and biodiversity over the next 70 years.