Thursday 3rd June 2021
Back aboard Jannock and in warmth and sunshine, fingers crossed that it stays like this for a good while.
Thanks to the Erewash Canal Society and Preservation Association for allowing Jannock to use AWCC mooring facilities for the last 2 weeks. Their Chairman (and moorings officer) Norman was excellent. We reversed Jannock from within their club basin out onto a visitor mooring next to the Nottingham Canal toll office in the Great North basin for the night.
A group of ‘little darlings’ approached as we were having our late lunch out on the foredeck and enquired if we were staying? Yes we are! How long? Oh, possibly until tomorrow or Saturday. What, just there? Yes. But we wanted to swim there. They hung around to realise that we were not fibbing, then stripped off their anoraks and black hoodies (it’s very warm out) and prepared to swim in the lock instead. Courage was a very long time coming but they eventually went in.
Meanwhile, another lad who was fishing by the ‘No Fishing’ sign, pulled out a large Pike, about 75cm long (2 foot 6 inches to us old bu$$ers) and about 6lb in weight. His mum arrived later and Brenda had to assure her that he really had caught the Pike – we showed her this photo as evidence.
We visited Lidl (across the road from the basin) to re-provision and then visited the Bunny Hop alehouse before crossing the road for an excellent Gurkha meal, both on the Cromford road, about a 5 minute walk. The pub is doing ‘covid’ hours, 3 till 8 mid week and 3 till 9 Fridays and the weekend. The ale selection was excellent and mine host was a very cheery and knowledgeable person and the other drinkers were very friendly – even recommending what desert to have in the Gurkha restaurant. We had a delicious meal and then asked for the desert menu – there was no desert menu. All they did was the rice pudding that we had been recommended by the drinkers over the road. We highly recommend the Bunny Hop/Royal Gurkha combo if you stay at Langley Mill.
On our return to Jannock we saw a wonderful sunset to end our day.
Friday 4th June 2021
We started this morning with a lovely drive through the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District to the Cromford canal terminus. The first industrial mill of Arkwright is an imposing edifice, and that what started it all! The walks along the Cromford canal are beautiful. Late spring had the trees in leaf, birds singing and plenty of hedgerow flowers. There was a variety of water fowl with their fluffy babies.
We walked a mile from Cromford to High Peak, had a cup of tea in the café and then walked back for lunch by the car, followed by an ice cream (with sherbet and a flake) before heading back to Langley Mill by a different route.
We then set off back down the Erewash canal again. Boys swimming in locks seems to be a thing around here as we happened across another group at Shipley lock. Then some older ‘blokes’ came along to boast how they used to open the gate paddles and then swim through them when they were kids. They we still alive so we didn’t actually believe that they did that. The youngsters listened attentively to what Graham had to say about how locks worked and helped us with the heavy gates.
We moored for the night alongside the sports field just after the Gallows Inn, where we stopped for a night on the way up.
G&B
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