Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

LEICESTER & THE TRENT, SUMMER 1997

PART 2 : THE MAIN SUMMER CRUISE,
The Soar and the Trent

We resume the story with the boat at Thurmaston on the GU Leicester Line.

Wendy the cats & I arrived from home about 15:00 & sat around for a while before starting as Wendy was a bit wonky from travelling. I realised I'd left one of our bags on the train, rang Sheffield (where the train finished) and arranged to pick it up at Loughborough station the next day. The fridge refused to light. We set off at 15:49, found some good scenery on this stretch and a reasonable amount of traffic. We saw 2 kingfishers together. We reached Barrow-on-Soar at 18:37 to find no room on the moorings opposite the pub, but the depth & bank were OK after the bridge. I went to the pub before supper - a good pub and very busy. The cats were put off a bit by passing people & dogs, but the hedgerow promised to be a good place for them later.

The fridge was still recalcitrant as we started at 08:13. At we Loughborough we moored by bridge 38 for a long shopping stop, plus the retrieval of the missing bag from the station. Wendy was deceived into shopping in what turned out to be a grotty Tesco, only to see a huge Sainsbury's on her way back to the boat. I went and got the booze supplies from Sainsbury's. In future visits here, the junction will probably be a nearer mooring for Sainsbury's.

When we moved off (soon on the Loughborough Navigation), it was a very short time before we stopped at R & D Boatyard in the hope of getting the fridge sorted out, but once their gas specialist had come back from lunch it turned out that he'd injured his hand and couldn't do the job. So we continued to East Midlands boatyard for another try at getting the fridge fixed, this time successfully. They were nice people, who told us that their diesel price wasn't competitive and that we could get it a lot cheaper at a boatyard in Kegworth.

At 17:32 we moored before Kegworth new lock, on a mooring we'd used before between the bridge and the lock. We thought of walking into the village to the Cap & Stocking but didn't have the energy. I did walk down the towpath to have a look at the boatyard, but wasn't particularly impressed by their diesel price, so we decided not to wait around for them to open in the morning.

Starting at 07:30, we had a good run down the last bit of the Soar. Wendy thought she could smell gas in the cabin. At Soar Mouth junction we turned east on the Trent Navigation. We'd forgotten how high the walls of Beeston lock are to cope with flood levels (although the rise of the lock in normal conditions isn't very much). At Lenton Chain the navigation becomes (what's left of) the Nottingham Canal, which we followed into Nottingham, finding a good long set of pleasant moorings by Sainsbury's and a DIY store in an industrial/trading complex.

By now the smell of gas was clear. I investigated and found one of the joints in the piping to the fridge (re-fitted yesterday) wasn't quite tight, so we reversed about a quarter of a mile to Castle Marina to get the gas problem sorted. I was grateful that in front of so many populated boats on the moorings, Felis Catus II handled quite well in reverse. Castle Marina didn't charge us for sorting out the gas problem, but we found a lot of things in the chandlery we needed and spent about £70.

We went back to Sainsbury's to shop, undecided where to stay for a crew change (I was going back to London and Ian arriving). We confirmed by 'phone that Ian can come tomorrow morning. I walked down past Castle Lock to find the station, but didn't see any moorings better than these, so we decided to stay where we were.

I left for London early in the morning and Ian arrived about mid-day. He & Wendy set off at 12:45 and shared Castle lock with nb Thomas before stopping to use the facilities at Meadow Lane sanitary station. They shared Meadow Lane lock with a steel centre-cockpit cruiser Merlin and were onto the River Trent, where they found themselves on their own in the manned locks. At 16:25 they stopped for the night on a BW visitor mooring pontoon at Gunthorpe. When they arrived there were already two or three other boats there and by 18:00 it was full.

Rain didn't encourage them to start any earlier than 10:20. The manned locks that day were sometimes showing red & green lights simultaneously! At Farndon Harbour they stopped for a pump-out, then went on to arrive below Newark Town lock at 14:20. They moored almost opposite the castle, to a wharf that was a bit high for their liking, but not as bad as some of the alternatives. Ian shopped in what they found to be a pleasant town. I arrived back sometime after 21:00.

We decided to have breakfast before starting in order not to arrive at the next lock before it was manned. We set off at 09:11 and boating through Newark, we saw a better-height mooring near the Castle Barge pub-boat. We winded before Cromwell lock then moored to look at the lock and weir. - very impressive. This is the biggest weir on the Trent. The lock, and the tidal water beyond it look a lot less bleak and forbidding than at Dog-in-a-Doublet on the Nene but nevertheless we were not tempted to venture onto the tidal section. Orinthia had a run ashore while Ian & I were being photographic.

We set off back and arrived at Newark Town lock during the lock-keeper's lunch-break. A local boat crew didn't know how to operate the lock for themselves, so we did it: a pretty standard BW key-operated console. At Gunthorpe the mooring pontoon was empty when we arrived at 16:36, but filled up later. We met a pleasant couple with couple & dog Taffy on cruiser Manyana (sic) and had a barbecue on the pontoon.

We deliberately didn't start too early as we didn't want to have to work Holme lock without the keeper as it's a deep one, so we started at 07:11. When we got to the lock the light was amber and another boat was waiting. I walked up and found the lock-keeper, having started late because he was catching up on paperwork, was just working another boat down. At Meadow Lane junction we had to spend some time hanging around mid-river waiting to get into the lock. Beyond Trent Bridge we could see a whole load of boats moored up for the Nottingham Festival that weekend.

The canal through Nottingham
Meadow Lane lock
Nottingham Canal Museum		Castle Lock

We had to queue to take on water at Meadow Lane sanitary station, but we waited because we all wanted showers and needed to fill up with water first. Then we shopped at Sainsbury's and the DIY place (mainly for bits & pieces for a repair of one of the seat-locker tops, but ended up also buying some suitable hooks for hanging fenders, and a wok as well!). We all showered. Ian walked back to look at the Nottingham Canal Museum, which he rated fairly highly. (It closed a couple of years later - a pity.) While we were a here a young women (student?) painted a water-colour of the boat which she gave us as we set off.

At Beeston lock we had a spot of difficulty throwing lines up to the lock-keeper, who was highly amused. He told us where there were good 48-hour moorings in the Cranfleet Cut, which we used, arriving at 18:25.