Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

LEICESTER & THE TRENT, SUMMER 1997

PART 3 : THE MAIN SUMMER CRUISE -
The Erewash Canal and the Trent & Mersey

We resume the story with the boat at Cranfleet Cut on the River Trent Navigation.

Starting at 07:44 we reached Soar Mouth junction almost at once and turned into the Erewash Canal. There are some very interesting mill buildings by the cut in Long Eaton. We had hoped to get all the way up the Erewash and most of the way back in a day. But that idea fell foul of a badly-leaking lock (Junction, alias Stanton) which had dropped the level of the pound above by about 2 ft.

After chatting with an angler about the depth, we decided to try and get up that pound, leaving me ashore with one of the mobile 'phones in case of problems. I had problems closing the gate (not enough water to give it buoyancy?) and by the time I caught up with the boat it was very firmly stuck in a bridge'ole. So I went up to the next lock (Hallam Fields) and let water down until there was enough to float us off. Fortunately the pound above was marginally above weir when I started, so it was only about 6 or 8 inches below by the time we were afloat.

We spotted a launderette near Gallows Inn lock, so decided to aim to come back to overnight and use it lin the morning.

We arrived at Langley Mill and Great Northern Basin (which is actually on the Cromford Canal), which was very good to see, and we were welcomed by somebody from the Erewash Trust.

After looking around we winded and set off back. At 18:16, at The Bridge, Ilkeston we saw a good mooring-spot with bollards and decided we'd expended enough energy for the day.

We started at 07:33 and in just under an hour moorer below Gallows Inn lock for our planned launderette stop. This proved not as long as we'd expected, so I didn't get the locker-top mended as I'd hoped. On our way again, we got to the top of Hallam Fields lock and were hailed by another boat waiting there. They had been asked by the lock-keeper to wait until 12:00 while he was running some water down.

At the due time, we set off with the other boat. We were slightly apprehensive as the other boat came out of the lock first which I thought not a good ideas as they were deeper-draughted than us, and the water was only about at the level at which we just got through yesterday. By being behind them, we wouldn't be able to pull them off if they got stuck, which they did under the motorway bridge (not where we had stuck yesterday). While watching them try to get afloat again, I had to keep juggling our position, as the water-level was falling. Eventually another boater (with his boat waiting below Junction lock) came up and said that a BW man was on his way up to Hallam Fields to let some more water down.

Eventually we were in motion again. No more problems after this point. It transpired that homo BWiensis had expected us to leave a paddle open at Hallam Fields, but hadn't actually asked us to!

The bottom part of the Erewash is a very long slow crawl past lots of moorings. We rejoined the Trent Navigation and turned west. We arrived at Sawley locks simultaneously with two other boats, so used both locks at once. Both were now on key-operation. We entered the Trent & Mersey and decided to go beyond Shardlow, but there wasn't anywhere with adequate depth, so we ended up at 18:46 hanging off one end of the lock-mooring at Weston.

We started at 07:11. The deep locks at this end of the T&M are quite turbulent, and Wendy was glad to share with Tarka in Stenson lock. At Stenson Marina we stopped for a pump-out & water. We'd hoped to buy milk there, but they don't sell it and suggested Willington village, so we went on to there and Wendy shopped for odds & ends. She looked for a replacement cafetière (ours burst, making an awful mess, while I was getting breakfast that morning), but couldn't find one, so bought a strainer instead.

We moored at 16:54 above Alrewas lock and wondered about going to see Harry Arnold but couldn't summon the energy. I christened the new wok with a good stir-fry.