On to Nottingham

On the way there have been several deserted medieval villages.  This is one of them.  I wonder if it was plague or sheep that got the villagers moved on.

Not sure what this boat owner thinks he is going to get away with.  A more obvious alteration to a licence is yet to be seen.  Apart maybe from my father who once used a Guinness bottle label as a tax disc on the car in the early fifties :-) 

Waiting for the lock and the harvest is being got in in the nearby fields.  The tractor and trailers look much too big for the bridges and this was one of the smaller tractors.

Lovely little wharfs appear. Reached this one on the way up in a cloud burst.  Not impressed by the local boater though.

Another quiet mooring out in the countryside.

In places some of the weeping willow have need of a hanky.

Graffiti is evident so must be near civilisation.

In places its like being on a beck.  Interesting when you meet another boat:-)

The outskirts of Leicester.

Someone has been busy since we came down.  The whole of the land on the left has been cleared of trees and scrub.  More houses one assumes and what a lovely place to have some....

but it is handy for the football:-)

Leicester proper and the visitor mooring on the right.  Outside a memorial garden which is locked each night with an exit for a CRT key.

Stopped for a few minutes only and decided to crack on.

Now thats what I call Graffiti. Somebody has taken some trouble over it.

They don't care where they put the pipe do they.  It would look a rather nice bridge without it.

The start of :Loughborough.

Not sure what Loughborough does with these but they are pleasingly large and well able to pull a narrowboat along.

For some reason I feel that this is the point from whence we once visited Taylors Foundry.  Looks very unloved now but still clear of rubbish its only weeds that cover the place.

Another mill turned over to accommodation and much better than dereliction.

Now and again a bridge turns up that is somewhat different to the normal canal style.

I reckon I have rung here too.

Deep lock on the way out of Radcliffe

The power station at Radcliffe is visible for many miles around and takes ages to get anywhere near.

Last mooring before Nottingham and only yards away from the lock.

Below the lock the following day and bit of an oops has come over this work boat.

The flood lock before the Trent and its open.

The Trent feels large after the Soar and around the corner by the boat club and its back to canal.

Another flood lock and this one is the access to the Cranfleet Cut.

Somewhere here is a lock.  Sadly the pontoon for lock use is mostly covered with moored up boats.

Which bit of No Mooring don't people understand.

Along a bit of the canal that looks as though there was at one time a wharf every couple of feet a load of boats arrive.  Well the sun is out and its a weekend..

Not far now and the visitor moorings.  Plenty of room but a bit ambiguous as to which bits are 14 days.

The boat in front was across the canal and I retied it.  Someone is being slapped on the wrist by CRT as there is a DOCUMENTS ENCLOSED bag stuck on the window.

and a favourite girl turns up as if by magic and I get dragged to the pub.  I didn't want to go!! Honest!! :-)

'Happy' Birthday to us

Moored comfortably at Thorne and took the time to seek out a mooring for a few weeks when I might be required to scoot off to Scunthorpe.

A visit to Blue Water Marina was the first thing on the list and they were as jolly and welcoming as ever.  With the weather being very iffy there were few people about but a mooring will be available when I need it in December - January.

Not far from the marina is the railway station.  Thorne South is the direct line to Grimsby and with a train every hour and a journey of twenty minutes the trip to Sunny Scunny should be a doddle.

It has been suggested that a mooring might be on the cards in the creek at Barton on Humber. I will be looking into it of course but will need some decent weather to get there.  Out from Keadby on a high tide then having reached Barton I would have to wait for the next high tide to get in.  I will be taking advice on the trip this time.

While we were at Keadby a gent came up and chatted about a boat that had an open day except that it was no longer in.  I knew the boat he meant for it was moored up at Keadby with its sails up the last time I was there.

The reason that the Swinton moved was to let a bigger boat come in and the water in the canal had been increased by three inches for that purpose.  

Well today I found out what the boat was.  The Humber Sloop Spider T. 

Spider T is an iron hull Humber sloop built in 1926 at Warrens Shipyard, New Holland, with a Gardner diesel engine, 200 hp. She was built for cargo carrying and worked as such until 1972. Later, she was sunk, refloated and used for the Rotherham Police Community Project. The present owner bought her in 1994 from the Sobriety Centre, Goole. SPIDER T has now been restored to her original condition on the outside with a period Edwardian interior. A traditional sail maker has re-created 1920s style sails of tan sailcloth; the last time she was fully rigged was in 1939. With an expert crew she can now sail in the waters she was built for.

The sloop looks in really good nick but I bet it costs an arm and a leg to keep it running.

The boat had someone going on ahead opening bridges for them.  A great saver of time.  I can imagine the length of time it would take to drop someone off and get through the bridge then pick them up again.

I blame it on the Baked Beans

While we were stuck at Keadby due to the high winds BW decided to move Swinton to the other side of the canal.  They had some difficulty to get it off the mooring with the wind blowing it back on.

Just to prove the point they then had trouble mooring alongside as the wind kept blowing them off the mooring.

Still today is the day that the wind dropped a little and Tim and I decided to give it a try.  Easy enough to get away with wind still blowing across.

As soon as you leave Keadby you come to the Vason Railway Bridge.  There are only - or there were - three bridges of this type.  They withdraw across the canal at an angle.  I have watched it do this several times and still can't quite make it out.

After a piece of canal that Abz christened as the middle of nowhere you arrive at Crowle.  It has changed quite a bit over the last year.  Handy for catching a train though.

Speaking of the train.  The line has been following us for some time now and as we reach Godnow Bridge we need the level crossing to be closed so that the bridge can be operated.  I have been going in front and mooring up, opening the bridge and letting Tim through and he then closes up behind me.  I worked quite well although on a number of occasions it took some effort to get of the mooring.

At last the 'concrete mushroom' (the water tower) at Thorne comes into view at the end of another straight.  A lot of time was spent going sideways up the canal.  The canal is higher than the farmland around here and the wind has little to slow it down.

Everything was ticking over nicely and then Hadleigh messed it up :-)  The Moors Swing  bridge refused to work. So we are moored on one side and Hadleigh is on the other.  It looked OK but wouldn't do anything.  They made a call to BW who promised to send someone out.  Thats us for the day we thought.

Very wrong.  Within 20 minutes the cavalry arrived and within minutes he had reset the controls and the bridge did its thing.

Just one bridge left and we are into the last straight.

Almost home from home.  The boats moored alongside Blue Water Marina.

Was it my imagination or did Abigail Jenna try to go right and into the marina or was it the wind.  Exactly a year since I moved on board here.

On to the footbridge in the middle of Thorne and there is not a very generous mooring site here but we managed to get through.  The council attendant that was on hand said the 'The bridge has been working fine for three weeks now' :-)  

Tim pulled into the chandler to pick up gas while I turned and moved astern to the moorings.  I had thought of staying there but as the last boat was 36 foot this time I stuck out rather a lot so moved a few yards further.

Off to Blue Water Marina tomorrow to see how the mooring situation as around here if I need to moor up in a hurry come December - January.

Oooo the excitement

At 0810 I was in the lock at Torksey and Neil, the lock keeper had already let one boat through that was heading for Cromwell Lock.

I was asked as I left to let the two boats that had moored outside the lock yesterday, having come down stream, know that it was time to go.

The first piece of interest on the Trent is the the ruins of Torksey Castle. 

I was soon overtaken as I still have my doubts about the engine and don't feel inclined to give it the gun. One boat was heading for the Chesterfield Canal and the other was making, like me, for Keadby.

There are a number of scenic views on the way and one of them is the very French looking folly that is called Burton Chateau. The corners along here are taken at speed and the boats leans quite a way over as they are rounded.

The village of Knaith comes next.  One of the days I will visit the church as it looks rather unusual.  It is wider than it is long by the looks of it and has two gable ends side by side.

More excitement when the carrier - Fusedale of Hull caught up with me on a bend.  I slowed down to let him through and pulled in to the inside of the bend.  As we rounded the bend straight in front was the bridge at Gainsborough.  I normally go through the centre arch but as he would need it I took the left hand one and hoped that it was deep enough.  It was.

A few hours after leaving Torksey I passed Stockwith Lock.  No sign of the boat so he must have made good time.

However as I passed I noticed the amount of water going over the gates.  Remember this.

At last.  The M180 road bridge.  Not far now to the lock. For a while now the boat has been doing 12kph and with the engine ticking over, as when the carrier passed I was still doing 7kph.  Naughty Call can stop laughing immediately. :-)

Nearer and nearer to the lock and the lift bridge with road and rail traffic.  Pity it has stopped opening.

From the bows

Getting into Keadby is bit of a trial.  It is no good trying to get straight in with the speed of the ebbing tide.  When along side and heading straight for it one turns up stream and then has to go full ahead to make any headway.  Managed to just get round the corner but slight problem with the sand build up outside.  The other boat was inside and had had to wait till I arrived.  Here the problems began.

Normally the lock keepers are brilliant.  This one was having a very bad hair day it seemed.

As I got into the lock and the gate closed behind me I didnt have time to sort out the ropes and there was no one to pass a rope to on the lock side before the gates closed and the sluices opened to fill the lock.  The water from the sluice rushes under the boat, hits the sea gates and then pushes the boat forward.  With the engine going full astern and me pushing and pulling like an idiot the bows are stuck against the gates.  Remember the water at Stockwith. A similar situation was happening here.  The water cascaded into the bows and filled the well then over flowed into the boat.  Not as bad as it might have been for a number of boats in the past have been sunk by this sort of thing happening. I did think - Pillock - or words to that effect.

I did have a word with the lock keeper and suggested it might be a good idea to make sure boats are secure before opening the sluices.  The next two hours were spent mopping up.

The fire is now lit and all windows closed and is like a sauna.  Just what I needed. 

The view from the stern

More on the other boat later.  We will travel to Thorne together as it is easier to operate bridges with two people.