Having finally got the house sorted out we returned to the boat on the hottest day of the year to date.
The temperature on board was 37 deg C, a tad warm! we opened every door and window to try and cool things down a bit.
Having returned the car back to Leeds we were ready to commence a new phase of our journey, and were soon underway on Wednesday morning.
Heading east towards Shardlow we came upon our first obstacle of the day, the impressively deep and wide Stenson lock. There was a widebeam just entering the lock as we approached, with another waiting below so we had no alternative to wait our turn, we were joined in the queue by NB Parisian Star with whom we shared all the locks down to Shardlow. As alway in these situations we got chatting, the boat is owned by a Danish couple, Tore and Kirsten who spend their summers touring the UK canals.
We were fortunate two find a couple of moorings in Shardlow, right outside the Malt Shovel and New Inn both of which overlook the canal.
We arranged to meet our new friends in the Malt Shovel, moving on to the New Inn for a bite to eat, to complement a great evening we saw Germany knocked out of the World Cup, something that seemed to please the the Danes as much as us!
The following morning we moved on to the River Trent, retracing our steps from January, Tore and Kirsten remained in Shardlow, waiting for some battery maintenance. We had arranged to meet them in Leicester at the weekend.
Passing through Derwent lock onto the river we noted that the level was a couple of feet lower than that in January and the sun continued to shine giving us confidence to finally make the trip up the Soar, our previous two attempts had been thwarted by wet weather, something that can quickly affect the river. Passing through the open flood lock we arrived at the Sawley Cut before reaching the large Sawley river lock. There was a keeper on duty and a green light indicated a direct run into the lock to then be lowered to the lovely stretch of river down to Trent lock.
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| Looking back to Sawley Lock |
Trent lock is a major waterway intersection, our route onto the Soar took us to the right, to the left is the lock onto the Erewash canal and straight ahead is the lock onto the Cranfleet cut leading to Nottingham.
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| Looking towards Trent Lock |
As we took the right turn onto the Soar we passed the huge weir that drops the Trent down and on its way to Nottingham, we held a hard right coarse, entering a beautiful stretch of river.
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| Turning right onto the Soar Ratcliffe Power Station is in the Background |
We pressed on up the river through stunning countryside on a gloriously calm and sunny morning our first lock on the river is a very isolated spot and fortunately two boats were just leaving on our approach, setting the lock in our favour.
We left the lock making our way to Kegworth Deep lock, there was a queue here with a wide beam in front of us and a narrowboat already in the lock, this lock takes approximately 40 minutes to fill so we had quite a wait before our turn, during which we were joined by another boat making the task of filling a little easier.
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| Kegworth Deep Lock |
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| Above Kegworth Lock |
Our next village was the charming Normanton Upon Soar, a picturesque riverside village reminding us of the Thames.
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| Normanton Upon Soar church |
We continued upstream leaving the river behind, taking the canal into Loughborough, here the main route takes a sharp left turn but we continued along the short arm into the town basin.
The basin is surrounded by tall buildings with student flats and a Travelodge overlooking the canal scene. There are facilities here, but, boaters beware, there is a large wall to tie up to if you need water and with the wind being funneled by the buildings its makes a very difficult maneuver to tie up. We gave up in the end as once we managed to get a centre rope onto a mooring ring the ring just pulled out of the wall. This let the place down as otherwise we had a very peaceful night despite its town centre location.
We had a walk into the town center and just managed to catch the end of the extensive, weekly Thursday market.The town is typical with most of the large industry now gone, Brush had their large works here making large diesel electric sets for locomotives amongst other things. The town is now home to a large university specialising in Sports studies.
Friday morning brought low overcast cast cloud, however this was soon burnt off to give another day of blue skies.
We left the basin after our aborted attempt at using the services and carried on aiming for Leicester some 14 miles and 11 locks upstream.
We arrived at Barrow lock again helped through by a lock keeper, just after the lock we called at the services close to the boat club.
Barrow is a lovely spot with a large camp and caravan site by the riverside and lock. Above the lock the village presents a charming face to the river with some amazing properties overlooking us as we cruised by.
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| Barrow Upon Soar |
We saw a chainsaw sculpture taking place close to the river at the bottom of a garden.
Above Barrow we rejoined the river by Barrow Marina, the river takes on the air of a small Trout stream causing me to question whether we had taken a wrong turn somewhere as it really did not look as if it was navigable.
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| Lonely cloud punctuating endless blue skies |
Meandering along the valley we soon arrived at Mountsorrel overlooked by a huge quarry up on the hillside. The lock sits in an idyllic setting with the Riverside pub overlooking the canal and lock.
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| Must have a Dutch architect in Mountsorrel |
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| Space Center |
There are a few large factories still standing but as if often the case these days they have been converted to apartments, the remaining industry confined to small and rather small and tatty looking establishments.
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| Converted Factory |
The lock keeper at Barrow recommended the moorings at Friars Mill and we were delighted to find space available.
The moorings are on a pontoon and secured by a couple of gates requiring a CRT key for access.
Once we had tied up we walked into city, we have never been to the center before and were delighted to find that it retains a lot of its old charm with some lovely old buildings to explore.
We had noted that there was the street food festival on so we walked over only to find that the fine Friday evening had brought out most of Leicester to the same place so we quickly retired to sit outside one of the many town centre pubs.
We had planned to visit the Richard III tomb in the cathedral , fortunately one of the many guides volunteered to look after Scruff whilst we explored. Visiting the tomb seemed to be a fitting end to all the reading of Medieval history we had done over the last year.
A visit to the Richard III visitor centre is a must as it is very well presented culminating in a view into the grave where his remains were discovered in 2012.
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| Guildhall - Leicester |
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| Leicester Catherdal |
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| Richard III's Tomb |
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| The man himself |
We plan to leave Leicester on Monday making our way to the Leicester section of the Grand Union Canal, then on to Market Harborough and the Foxton locks.
