We got through Gunthorpe!

Thursday 10th June 2021

Wildlife of the Day – Egrets and an Oystercatcher

We left the mooring pontoon and moved down to the lock landing for 9am which was about when the volunteer lockie turned up. He made his cup of tea, went into the lock control office, opened the blinds and did ????? – who knows. With two narrowboats waiting on the lock landing, in full view, he just stayed in the hut.

 

The lady from the boat we were sharing with, went up to the office and enquired about when we could pass through the lock, he said that he didn’t know any-one was waiting – obviously opening the blinds and actually looking out the window are two separate actions. We wondered how long we would have had to wait if he hadn’t been prodded by the visit.

Having successfully negotiated around the sandbar across the bottom of Stoke lock we set off towards Gunthorpe. In Leicester we’d met a boater who had been charged £580 to be towed off that obstacle and we definitely didn’t want similar to occur so we had studied it from the bank on our trip to the pub last night. Keep right and head well out into the flow downstream of the weir if you want to avoid it.

 

At Gunthorpe we moored on the pontoon visitor mooring up from the lock entrance and then walked down to suss out what was happening. The engineers were just removing a bottom gate paddle with a very bent shaft but they told us that this was another problem they had discovered whilst investigating the initial problem on the other gate. That issue was still un-diagnosed and likely to remain so until next week when they could get a diver in to see what was up.

 

Graham chatted to the foreman who said that we could possibly go down the lock when the gang removed the crane from within the lock if we were ready to go at about 4pm. Graham then cleared it with the lockie who also went and confirmed this with the foreman. Come 4 o’clock, four boats were ready and waiting on the lock landing and we managed to get through accompanied by the crane barge as well.

Brenda suggested to the lockie that this was not the sort of situation that he had volunteered for, he just grinned and said that we had no idea about what phone calls that he had had to field today. What would this country do without all the volunteers who give up their valuable time to help others?

 

We had phoned ahead to Hazelford lock so although it was past ‘going home’ time, the lockie there worked us through to find a mooring for tonight below the lock.

G&B