The Melton Oakham Canal

[fuzzyduck]

This thread will evolve over the next few hours.

 

Earlier this year, myself and a couple of others made our first attempt at navigating the Melton and Oakham canal. A fact finding mission was launched, so we could see how much time / resources would need to be budgetted for a full attempt

 

In a nutshell we managed to make it about 2 miles in 4 hours, but other than weir portage, the boat floated the whole trip.

 

I thought Id share the images with y'all.

 

Next year we will attempt the full navigation.

[greywolf]

sound interesting shall view avidly.

[fuzzyduck]

Then I shall begin.

 

The story starts with an end.

 

The Melton Navigation closed on 1 August 1877. if you are interested in the beginning, and the middle.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melton_Mowbray_Navigation

 

In 2006 an Internet keyboard warrior who calls himself Fuzzyduck passed the end of the still closed Melton Navigation, and started to wonder ....

 

5 years later, after wondering about other things, like girls and beer, Fuzzyduck started a plan to claim the Melton Navigation as his own. Finally, a plan was hatched to navigate to full length of this long abandoned waterway. The plan was to obtain a suitably tough boat, and start working towards a full trip.

 

early 2011 the right boat appeared on ebay, and was purchased from a nice man in North Norfolk.

 

I apologise for the darkness of some of the images, but i used a waterproof mobile, the final trip will be done with an SLR

 

Image 1. The good ship Dorabella.

 

 

We knew we needed a dinghy, as the first obstacle is this delightful flat concrete bridge.

 

 

Previous messing about told us that there are submerged logs just under the bridge, so if you decide to try to beat me to Melton, beware here

 

Under the bridge gives you access to about 1/2 a mile of waterway that is great to decoke your 2 stroke. but it gets weedy in the summer.

 

Looking back towards the entry bridge

 

 

After the bridge the waterway opens out

 

 

about a quarter of a mile up there is a shallow section where rushes grow, if i wasn't determined this is where I'd have said "ooopsy, that's nice, lets go back."

 

[fuzzyduck]

But if you press on, you can just about force through the weeds.

 

 

And it opens out again.

 

 

a bit further on, the first real obstruction shows up.

 

 

A weir!! They've only gone and installed a sodding weir. this is where it starts to become a bit more like hard work

 

 

It is about here, that the first lock should be, we couldn't see any sign of it.

 

It took about 1/2 an hour to get the boat up to, and over the weir. beyond is the bridge, created by the death of the canal. The railways

 

Here we are looking back towards the Soar.

 

 

It's shallow under the bridge here, but at this point we're adventuring, and maybe the first powered craft in 100 years. At least we'd like to think so.

Edited October 6, 2011 by fuzzyduck

[Richard Fairhurst]

*applauds*

 

That's excellent - look forward to the rest of the pics. If you got two miles up, that will have taken you past the Gate Hangs Well, which is where (15 years ago) I stood up at the end of an IWA meeting about the Melton and Oakham and said "we should think about restoring these navigations - if you're interested, come and see me afterwards"... which is what led to the formation of the Melton & Oakham Waterways Society.

 

Brief slightly pedantic note: the waterway from the Soar to Melton is the Melton Mawbray Navigation; it's the Oakham Canal from Melton on to Oakham.

[fuzzyduck]

*applauds*

 

If you got two miles up, that will have taken you past the Gate Hangs Well,

 

Guess where this came from...

 

 

It's an old wino we found in the pub.

 

On a related note the MOWS site seems to have disappeared from beehive... They are still active i trust.

Edited October 6, 2011 by fuzzyduck

[fuzzyduck]

Moving on from the railway, we are in a pound that contains a pub

 

It also contains.

 

Fallen trees

 

 

This is the first and easiest of the 3, for the other 2, we had to scooch down for one, and drag ourselves over the other. No pics we were busy.

 

Lots of weed

 

 

And a childs school bag

 

 

Until........

 

Under a bridge.

 

 

And ....

Edited October 6, 2011 by fuzzyduck

[fuzzyduck]

I can see the pub from 'ere.

 

 

Worthy of note, the moorings here are shocking, this is a pub that should be, but isn't geared up for boaters. They'd actually roped off the moorings for a child's party, the gits!!! It's not like the canal's been closed for 130 years.

 

this is one of the prettiest bits of navigable waterway in Leicestershire.

 

[matty40s]

fuzzy, that looks remarkably like a lock(inthepast)type of thingy ahead..........

 

 

and surely that first wier had a lock there somewhere???

 

....when's the next jaunt....intrested>>>>>

[fuzzyduck]

The end of the road trip. From here the river goes on to Melton, but this was just a shall we / won't we try it taster, and we simply cannot be arsed to go over another weir.

 

 

I used to come here as a teenager to swim in the summer, so hold on.... there's something we missed, there should be an entry to a lock round here somewhere, let's retrace our tracks a little....

 

Found it, there isn't a pic of the channel we missed, as it isn't really a channel any more it's about 2 feet wide, and 5 inches deep. poor Mercury took a real beating getting us through.... but into the lock we go.

 

At this point I'm pretty certain we've done something no one's done in a very long time.... motored a boat into this lock.

 

 

maybe we can lock through ....

 

Maybe not, the gates have been gone for 100 years.

 

 

There's that bloody wino again.

 

Beware of the cill!!!

 

 

this lock is in suprisingly good condition.

 

Edited October 6, 2011 by fuzzyduck

[Bob18]

Well, nobody can claim it to "un-navigable" now as you've successfully navigated it in a powered craft.

 

 

Good luck on your next venture. And, who knows, in **years time we will be able to get a few narrowboats up there.

[fuzzyduck]

There are over 90 pics of our trip over the 2 miles, you are welcome to have a gander at them all at.

 

http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y232/dawncraft/Melton%20and%20Oakham/

 

they are not in order, as we took most of them coming back.

 

the Melton Navigation sits there, behind the low concrete bridge, sleeping, resting if you will. She really is an incredible waterway, and one that really deserves to see boats again.

 

Next year, we're going to try to do it from bottom to top. we figure if we use a lighter outboard, we can do it in one very long day, as there are streaches where good progress can be made.

 

Boating and Urbexing, my 2 favorite hobbies in 1 trip

 

Don't have nightmares.

 

[maggie-y]

Great pics - I shall have a look at the rest when I have more time. We have done part of it by canoe - its great fun.

 

Maggie

[Starcoaster]

This is excellent!

[fuzzyduck]

Another side note, and i will be posting many as random thoughts hit me.

 

If you do do this trip, be very careful at Syston Wier, the area was / is teaming with british crayfish, and the little blighters have enough to contend with without people like us dumping on them with their big size nines.

 

Also, before the trip, Dorabella was scrubbed down, to try to ensure we didn't take anything with us that didn't belong there.

 

i also planed her on the bottom (piled) section to ensure the bottom was clean.

[jami dodgers]

Gotta get me a hat like that

[sam pig]

Good work. Looks interesting and a grin. Grown men messing about on the water...happy days

[fuzzyduck]

Gotta get me a hat like that

 

Simply do what I did.... Steal it from Smelly at a banter.

 

That hat's won me "Best hat" award twice during the Three Rivers Race.

[carlt]

 

After finally reaching their destination, our two intrepid explorers marked the occasion with a quick round of synchronised pocket billiards.

[fuzzyduck]

Yeah baby... We were that excited.

 

Thats just the way we roll in my family.

[Joshua]

 

 

 

Well done Fuzzyduck, very entertaining but also quite sad.

 

 

 

By the way, don’t give up on your photos just because they are a bit under-exposed in parts.

 

Within those dark areas a lot of detail will have been captured, you just need to release it with a good graphics programme.

 

I have taken one of your photos as an example and with just a couple of mouse clicks brought out some of the detail. My monitor is sick at the moment so everything I see is through a green veil but I’m guessing some of what I have done will be obvious enough?

 

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Joshua.

 

 

[fuzzyduck]

Thats fantastic, thank you.

 

Can you have a crack at one more and make me better looking too please?

 

[carlt]

 

Can you have a crack at one more and make me better looking too please?

 

"The impossible we can do overnight; miracles may take a bit longer"

[Guest]

Brilliant thread and great pics,

 

 

Nice one FD

[Guest Quo Vadis]

Brilliant! Indiana Fuzzyduck

Can't wait for the next adventure.