Do we, don’t we?

Finally we did! It was gloomy, dull and damp this morning and we took some time to decide whether to move on or not. But tomorrow’s weather looks to be a bit grim, so we’d have finished up staying in Nottingham till Tuesday. So at just after 10 we untied, just as another boat came around the corner behind us. I think we’ve seen more boats on the move in the last couple of days than we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks!

I pulled out behind them, and followed them up the canal to Beeston.

Nottingham Castle Marina just after the visitor moorings.

Someone likes sanitary ware…


A newly-erected bridge just to the west of Thane Road Bridge, No. 17.
There’s a lot of groundwork going on on the north side, retail park, industrial estate, business park?? Obviously the new bridge is to service it, whatever it is, presumably from Clifton Boulevard.

It’s about an hour from the visitor moorings to Beeston Lock, and we arrived just as the preceding boat had the gates open. Good timing.

Beeston Lock


We shared the lock, then while our companions set off up river to Cranfleet I closed up and got rid of a bag of rubbish before we followed.

Out onto the river again.


The river wanders about a bit as it drops down from Cranfleet Lock, but Radcliffe Power Station is always visible. You’re just not sure whether it’ll be on the right, left, or straight ahead!


Although the rain doesn’t seem to have affected the river levels much, there’s a drop more water flowing down now than there was. It’s noticeable on some of the shallower bits, slowing progress a bit.

We arrived at Cranfleet after about an hour on the river, once again our locking partners had got the lock set up, so Meg and I jumped off on the pontoon and Mags took Seyella in.




Once again we closed up after the boats, only fair. They were heading up to Shardlow, but we’d not be sharing Sawley Locks as we intended stopping at the junction.

The top end of Cranfleet Cut comes out on the four-way junction, the Trent carries on to Sawley Cut and then the Trent and Mersey Canal, while the Erewash goes off to the right and the Soar comes in from the left.

I’d hoped to moor on the floating pontoon just past Trent Lock, but it was full.

So we turned around and moored just on the junction, looking out across the expanse of water. We had some stale bread, so fed the locals…
Species doesn’t matter if there’s food on offer!

We’ll wait out tomorrow (unless the river starts rising rapidly!) then head up through Sawley and on to the T&M on Tuesday.

Locks 2, miles 8½