Farewell Nottingham

Monday 5th July 2021

The overnight rain had stopped by breakfast time, but there was still a steady breeze doing it’s best to upset navigation. We spent a few minutes watching young sand martins being lazy and taking insects that had settled on the side of the boat, leaving the adults to do the fancy water skimming stuff.

Beeston lock was quickly passed through followed by the long slog up the Trent to Cranfleet lock. This was very lively due to being a singleton in a lock with no ground paddles. When we emerged there was a boat moored each side on the lock landings. The wind and current had every intention that Jannock should crash into the bows of the one on the towpath side. The woman sat in the bows looked concerned as we worked to avoid her. Graham then got off and pushed our bows over so that we missed her and only at that point did she make any attempt to help – too late luv! Thing is the visitor moorings were pretty empty so why did they think it was OK to moor up, having admitted that they were not passing through the lock, on the lock landing immediately outside the top gate?

 

Onto the River Soar where Graham spotted the first leopard print narrowboat he’s ever seen. We passed through Ratcliffe lock solo and then had another southbound boat arrive just as we were leaving. Graham promised we would wait for them at the next lock but then caught up with a couple who had two boats, a wide beam and a narrowboat, so we ended up sharing with that narrowboat instead. A lovely couple, the lady admitted that the only reason that they were still together was that they had two boats – but we didn’t believe her.

 

Some of the lock gates along this stretch are in desperate need of repair but I suppose they are not a priority for CaRT  as this stretch has plenty of water available so the problems are not highlighted by empty pounds.

 

As we approached Zouch, we were entertained by a National Grid EC145 helicopter that was inspecting the electricity pylons and associated cables alongside the river. The flying skills of those pilots is incredible with all the hovering and manoeuvring around so that they could get a good look at all the joints and insulators.

We decided to opt for a quiet overnight mooring just before Bishop Meadow lock, outside of Loughborough so that we can have an easy run in tomorrow. An evening walk made us wonder why there appears to be gongoozler seating at the bottom end of the lock.

 

On our way back to Jannock we got talking with the owner on a boat called GoGo. This is a WWII vintage craft that was one of four built for the RAF to be used in the Solent as a fuel tender for seaplanes operating out of Calshott. A lovely little craft although he has been waiting at Leicester for the river levels to go up with the rain as it had a 1.3 metre draft.

G&B