2007 Cruise

[Bill Kennedy]

April

 

Leaving Brewood on Sunday 2 April we moored at Gailey Roundhouse and saved the 12 locks to Great Haywood Junction for the next day. There’s something magical about waking up to a robin hopping about on the towpath outside your window, with mallards and moorhens foraging at the canal edge for breakfast and watching a squirrel springing from branch to branch on the bank opposite. It is especially magical if it’s cold outside and you’re snuggled up in a cozy bed.

 

Outside Gailey we met two splendid old restored trad working boats on their way to Chester for a rally. The mild winter this year has the trees already staring to unfurl their leaves, the birds nesting rather than mating and we’ve seen the first of the ducklings and spring lambs. There are definitely more boats out and today we queued at a lock with three boats to come up with two going down – something we’ve not previously experienced at this time of the year. Perhaps if this is to be an increasing trend we are having our boating years at the right time.

 

Only three moorings remained at Tixall Wide at 2.30pm and two at Great Hayward. We have just squeaked into the longer of these two and it happens to be the exact spot we moored here last year, but then we were the only boat along that stretch. We walked to the Farm Shop for kindling and other goodies before deciding to call it a day.

 

We decided we needed to be away by 7am in order to be at Fradley Junction to coincide our arrival with our travelling companion’s (Graham and Hazel on nb Nesta) arrival from the Coventry Canal direction. Sunlight was replaced by a little misty rain that cleared but the day remained cold and overcast. As the locals arose they bemoaned their change of fortune. In 2004 we made this journey in wind, driving rain and bitter cold so we are not complaining.

 

By mid afternoon we had reached Fradley Junction and as we descended the last of the locks we could see Graham and Hazel in the distance, waiting at the lock. We were sure, by the wag of his tail, that Harvey (G&H’s dog) remembered us. He is a little greyer around the muzzle (aren’t we all) but still the same old Harvey. After a snooze we all went to the Swan for tea.

 

After a lazy exit next morning at about 10am we descended the locks out of the junction and on to one of our favourite villages, Alrewas. This of course meant stocking up with Damson jam, tomato pickle and duck eggs from the Preserve Lady’s front fence honour system stall.

 

After Wychnor Lock, which we traversed in hail last year, it was a gentle meander down the Alrewas River. The canal runs beside the A38 for a good distance here and frequently the lorry drivers would toot their horns and give us a wave. Our night mooring was at Branston Water Park, an extensive flooded gravel pit that is now a bird sanctuary and fishing and recreational park.

 

Next morning revealed a glorious spring day. The brewery town of Burton-upon-Trent looked the prettiest we’d seen it and we stopped at the village of Willington for water and a lazy lunch of egg, bacon and onion butty. At 4pm we moored (a little early) at Swarkestone Stop. The Trent swings closer to the canal here and in the morning we’ll make the run into Shardlow and shortly after, at Sawley top lock, we will be on the Trent itself, and thence to Nottingham. But for now, it’s happy hour.

 

Our still disturbed sleep pattern meant a 4.30am waking which allowed us to see the most glorious red sunrise and a following fair sky. It was perfect Easter weather with wide blue skies and vapour trails.

 

We paused for a leisurely lunch at Sawley Marina which was busier than any of us had seen it before and we had to breast up. The engine fairly sang with the volume of water beneath it on the R Trent. Trent lock lowered us further onto the Cranfleet cut but it was after Cranfleet lock that we came out onto the river proper as it wound around happily through its river meadows. We saw our first flocks of Greylag geese and the large numbers of Canada Geese, all honking and courting. Beeston lock brought us back onto a cut, bypassing an un-navigable section of the Trent and it is on this that we moored for the evening, opposite the recreation grounds of Beeston, a suburb of Nottingham

 

Next morning after an hours cruise we were in Nottingham, moored up in the town outside Sainsbury’s. We took the opportunity to do a further stock of the larder and then set off to explore the town. We wandered first up to Lace Market, the hilltop suburb where the renowned Nottingham lace was made. The architecture of the area is quite elegant and we peeped into “The Galleries of Justice”, a legal and jailing museum in the former Victorian court and holding cells. A tour was just about to begin and a costumed “jailer” met us and gave a very theatrical insight into the plight of the detainees. We learned the origin of the expression “it’s the pits”, the pits being the deepest of the dungeon prisons where the poorest criminals, those who could not afford to pay the jailer for their board and food, were put. Thence we were led to the women’s cells and laundry workhouse where an equally talented prison “surgeon” wove a graphic picture of the state of the prisoners. Two hours later we emerged into daylight much sobered but entertained by the experience.

 

Wandering down the street we came across a church with young people sitting outside, drinking. We wandered inside and the entire interior had been converted to a very fancy bar. So strange to walk in, looking up at magnificent stained glass windows with the smell of beer in your nostrils. It took a good while to get over the sacrilegious feel of it all but with a drink in hand listening to some old Mick Jagger we decided it wasn’t an entirely bad way of keeping the building as a place of the people.

 

We didn’t think we were up to another night in downtown Nottingham and so made the decision to head downstream to moor for the night by at Holme Pierpont. At the last lock down onto the river the wind caught the tail of our boat and blew us sideways across the canal. It was the Oxford Thames nightmare all over again (see 2005 Cruise). The wind by this stage was getting stronger and our mooring was hasty, missing an old moored iron hulk by about a foot. “You’re lucky”, said Hazel, “We hit it!” Initially we moored at the spot reserved for a large tour boat and then moved, only to find the spot we had our eye on had been taken by a narrowboat coming out of the lock. Graham chatted up the owner of a cruiser who promised to give us a toot when he was leaving and so we are breasted up in his spot, waiting for the ₤300,000 odd cruiser in front of us to go home so we can spread out. There was a concrete shelf below the water beside us and when boats pass we kept banging up against it

 

Next morning we made the executive decision to move on to Gunthorpe, a little more out of the wind, and after a delightful journey down this lovely wide river, we moored outside the Unicorn Hotel at some very acceptable pontoon moorings. There we waited for our Australian friends, Merv and Anne, who were joining us for a few days to arrive which they duly did around 1.30pm.

 

We had a cosy fire going and they settled in in no time, had a bite to eat and we were on our way again heading for Heywood Lock and night moorings. The wall was too high for Harvey so we returned to some ex BW moorings back up river. Fortunately the man who leases one of the moorings was at the pontoon, his boat was in Amsterdam so he very kindly let us breast up at his.

 

We had read that Newark was a most interesting town but were not quite prepared for its charm when we arrived. The entire town is steeped in history and the way the history has been preserved by preceding generations is impressive. By the town bridge is an 1882 exact copy of a C17 hostelry. In charming tiny back streets there are delightful half timbered ancient houses, still fulfilling a modern useful purpose as tea rooms or the like.

 

The next morning we set off to explore the town. Our first port of call was the information centre in the grounds of Newark Castle and then a roam over the castle ruins themselves. The castle was destroyed by Cromwell (yet another to fall under his blows) and the town has been besieged three times.

 

We then wandered off to the Marketplace and took a look over the Town Hall and the butter market in its undercroft, now the site of small shops. A very helpful volunteer named Jacqui at the upstairs Town Hall offered us a guided tour of the assembly rooms, mayoral chambers and council chambers. By then it was 1.30 and we ventured into a half timbered old pub called the Hobgoblin for lunch. It was the first old British pub Merv and Anne had been in and so a real novelty for them. From the pub we took a look inside the church of Mary Magdalene, currently undergoing internal and external restoration.

 

The plan for the following day was to set out relatively early and make the four hour run down river to Torksey where we’d moor for the night. However, the best laid plans of mice and men etc. We were all fully tanked with water from the night before and set off in a light fog right on time at 9am and soon passed through Newark Nether Lock on the outskirts of town. We passed through Cromwell Lock, the biggest on the Trent, and then proceeded down river, passing a trad boat and butty, the first Merv and Anne had seen and a very big transport barge going at a fair rate of knots and creating a significant bow wave.

 

We were in sight of the pontoon moorings at Dunham Dumps when we glanced back to see Nesta, who was following, stuck fast on a mud bank on a corner of the river. We turned and went back and tried twice to pull him off, stern first, but to no avail. So we returned to the nearby pontoon moorings waiting for the tide to fall, turn and rise again when we hoped they’ll be able to float off. Sure enough about four hours later they floated off and joined us at the pontoon.

 

Next morning the fog moved in waves up the river as we had breakfast, limiting visibility to about 100yds and the weather forecast was that it wouldn’t lift until midday, revealing a hot afternoon of 25°C. Around 10am we could see other vessels proceeding cautiously up the river and that the fog was thinner so we set out on our way to Torksey Lock, the one we should have reached yesterday afternoon. As luck would have it we arrived at 11.15am, missing the lockkeeper and the tide by 15 minutes. We finally made it through late in the afternoon and moored up above the lock.

 

As soon as the fog cleared enough the next day we were off, along long stretches of generously wide canal bordered on either side by levies, rather like the Middle Levels. The quaint village of Saxilby with delightful moorings and the odd passing boats made for an interesting journey. Soon we could see Lincoln’s magnificent Cathedral high on the hill above the town and found moorings outside the student village which has been built canalside along with a new modern university. We spent a couple of days exploring Lincoln and were most impressed with the Cathedral and Castle.

 

Our original plan was to return to Torksey Lock, back onto the Trent and, next morning, make the run to Keadby Lock, stopping overnight at Gainsborough. In planning this we knew nothing of the Spring tide, the 25ft tide running up the Humber Estuary, nor the 5ft bore termed the Aiger, roaring down the Trent, which we were likely to meet on such a journey. This bore has been known to pick up a moored boat moored and deposit it not so neatly on the pontoon. Fortunately the lockkeeper at Keadby did and recommended we stay off the river for a few days.

 

We decide to continue further down the Witham Navigation and mess about until it is safe to return to the Trent. So we left Lincoln heading East, passing out of town under the Glory Hole, amidst cherry blossom, statuary and swans and through our first manual lock onto the Witham. We moored on a pontoon for the evening outside an old railway station and have been told to expect a frost tonight, a sharp change from the wonderful weather so far.

 

The frost never came and the fire never happened however there was a lazy little wind and the river was very quiet and we passed only a small number of boats. When we reached Woodhall Spa, there were two very nice mooring spaces for us and so became home for the afternoon and night.

 

 

We walked the two and a half kilometers into this very pretty village, home of the Dambusters, whose headquarters were here during the war. The road in was lined by pink and white flowering cherry blossom and the last of the daffodils and grape hyacinths. Tulips in amazing colours were flowering in all the yards and the feeling was one of great civic pride.

 

Fired up by the thought of the Dambusters and the fly overs all day by state-of-the-art Euro-fighters, Hurricanes, Dakotas and Spitfires from nearby RAF Conningsby, we men made an executive decision to moor at tiny encampment called, appropriately, Dogdyke. No sooner had we moored we were off, leaving the girls day on board. The Memorial Flight is well worth a visit.

 

An executive decision was made next morning that we had the time to make the run down to Boston and still deliver Merv and Anne back to their train as close as possible to Lincoln on Monday. Having come this close to The Wash, it’s hard to resist the pull of the sea. We are still seeing narrowboats but cruisers predominate, along with little sea going boats.

 

We made the run down to Boston, collecting diesel on the way, and as we came into the town there was a vista down river to St Botolph’s Church, the largest parish church in England, originating from Boston’s successful era as a wool town in C13. The tower is 272ft tall and is known as “the Stump” because the tower does not contain a spire. We declined the invitation to climb the 365 steps in the “claustrophic narrow turret” but toured the church itself. It’s restoration during this century has been largely financed by the people of Boston, Massachusetts who have adopted it. We moored for the night at Langrick Bridge.

 

On the approach to Lincoln we saw the most wonderful iron sculptures of two cows on the bank along with some genuine Heiland Coos. At 4.30pm we displaced four boatloads of Lincoln Sea Cadets from the pontoon at Washingborough and moored for the night.

 

After a lazy return to Lincoln, taking on water at the lock, we phoned the marina and were told that a mooring was available for ₤10 for the night, although we would have to breast up – they still wanted £20. On arrival we discovered that the mooring belonged to a wide beam boat that had returned early. We were moved forward to tie to the bank and breast up under the bridge. Not the most salubrious of moorings but the marina chap informed us it was exam week so we shouldn’t have too much trouble with missiles being thrown over the bridge onto our roof.

 

We arranged to depart Torksey Lock at 2pm the next day to make the run down the tidal Trent, stopping overnight at Gainsborough, before tackling Keadby Lock the day after. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing an essential shop for the next part of our trip then having a last look at Lincoln.

 

 

All good things must come to an end. We departed shortly after 9am, leaving Merv and Anne standing on the bank waving us goodbye. Their train was to leave at 10am so the timing of tide and trains was good for us all.

 

Once onto the Trent we began traversing history, at Marton, passing the site at of the ford where the Roman road crossed the Trent, marking the western boundary of the ancient kingdom of Lindsay and where, apparently, fully laden modern sand barges often scrape bottom on such relics. Further on, at Knaith we passed the relics of a Cistercian nunnery and chapel.

 

We moored for the night at Gainsborough. As we approached, the tall wharves and flood barriers looked formidable and the tide was sweeping us along at a great old rate of knots. A little downstream we made our turn to come back to the pontoon to moor into the current. Punching back upstream against the flow made it seem like we were going nowhere fast but finally we were back and secure. It was cold and bleak, getting dark and we were moored well below the level of the town, in all a fairly depressing outlook. Although the guide said that Gainsborough was worth a look, the times of our arrival and departure were not exactly conducive to it. We all agreed on an early night as we had to leave at 7am to get to Keadby Lock on the ebbing tide. The first big sand barge went by around 10pm the noise and the wash were such that we thought it was going to side swipe us. The next one went by at 2am and the third at 6.30am.

 

Leaving Gainsborough we entered the jurisdiction of the Humber Navigation and the Trent carried the marks of busy shipping traffic when once vessels up to 850 tons plied the waterways. However the only ones we saw were the 6.30am barge hard aground on a mud bank waiting for the incoming tide and another big vessel being unloaded at the entrance to Keadby Lock. Finally we passed the motorway which was the marker for our call to the Keadby lockkeeper and we were directed to the lock entrance, totally obscured, as we approached, by a ship. After much to-ing and fro-ing the lockkeeper took a cruiser out of the lock and fitted in three narrowboats, bringing the cruiser in separately – the cruiser skipper was quite happy to be out of the way of “those big steel boats- I’m only plastic”.

 

Finally we were off the river and back on the canal system, learning the secrets of swing and lift bridges again as roads and railways criss-cross this wide fens area. We’ve not done any since the K&A two years ago and every one seems to be different. We arrived in the pleasant looking town of Thorne where we spent the night and celebrated my birthday at The Canal Inn. There were two other birthday parties at the pub so the atmosphere was just what we wanted.

 

We met on Nesta next morning for a bacon and egg breakfast and to plan our route to York. The Stainforth and Keadby Canal along which we next travelled proved to be one of the prettiest stretches we’ve travelled on. At the end of this canal at Bramwith Lock we had to use the full length of the lock as Nesta, at 62ft, would not fit in the short lock.

 

Rounding the corner we entered the absolutely straight New Junction Canal which runs all the way to the Aire and Calder Canal. The wind intensified during the day and made the variety of lift and swing bridges and unfamiliar locks all the more interesting. By mid afternoon, however, we’d had enough of the wind and moored for the night.

 

Late in the evening a very large oil tanker called the Humber Princess moored some distance behind us. We figured they’d pull out early in the morning and that this would be a good thing. It would not be pleasant for a boat of that size doing 6mph to chase two narrowboats doing 4mph along a canal, unable to pass them. The crew was duly delivered back to the boat at 7am and we watched her pass and felt the displacement.

 

The temperature next morning was 6°C, the coldest for some time. Continuing our run along the New Junction Canal we passed only three small cruisers and one narrowboat going in the opposite direction and after traversing a succession of lift bridges, turned left onto the Aire and Calder Navigation, heading towards Knottingly. This canal is initially quite rural though the monolithic cooling towers of power stations seem always on the horizon. Towards Knottingly it becomes an industrialised waterway, steel-piled and lined with maintenance equipment and vessels and the malodours of the nearby chemical factory ever present. Suddenly, with our passage through Bank Dole Lock we left all this behind and dropped down onto the River Aire, where the view was decidedly rural.

 

The wind was rising by the time we reached Beal Lock so we decided to call it a night at the sheltered moorings below the lock. We explored the village, a mix of the very old and “new build”, which doesn’t even have a shop and the old school is now a desirable private residence.

 

Next morning we made an executive decision not to travel until the wind dropped. One narrowboat came through the lock and we quizzed the crew for info on conditions beyond our hidey hole. We were told that the wind situation was much better at West Haddesley, where the Aire meets the Selby Canal so off we set around 10am in cold blustery weather. The Aire is as tortuous as the Thames above Oxford but is a deeper river that cuts a path through higher grazing pasture rather than meandering through river meadows. The minute we passed through the flood lock at West Haddesley the weather was calmer and while we had lunch, the sun slowly came out. It turned into such a pleasant afternoon we decided to push on towards Selby Lock where we must wait for the right tide to enter onto the River Ouse and thence north to our destination at York. This should be at 6am on Sunday.

 

We advanced the boats to the moorings by the Brayton Road Bridge, not such a clever move really as we had the noise of traffic from the bridge to contend with. The journey along the Selby Canal next morning was pleasant and slow as the fishermen were out in force. This canal is shallow (3’ 6”). We read with interest how in 1821, one third of the people of Selby were making their living from the waterways but how, when coal mining began in the area, the shallowness of the canal caused such problems for the coal barges that a new and deeper canal was built from Knottingly to Goole in 1826. The journey on the Trent to Goole is a shorter route to York but we decided too hazardous for us, hence our decision to go the “long way round”.

 

This waiting for neap tides is not something we’re accustomed to on the canal system but wait we must so that our journey on the R. Ouse carries the least risk and 6am tomorrow is the designated time. Despite the 9ºC temperature, the lockkeeper appeared in shorts and set about releasing us onto the incoming tide running up the Ouse. Talk about flotsam and jetsam! Even the R.Severn with “fresh” didn’t contain as much rubbish as this river. Dodging the floating trees in a 58ft narrowboat was something else. It was nice to see the keeper in the tower on Cawood Bridge give us a wave and phone through to Naburn Lock as we passed and know that the experts are looking out for us.

 

The Naburn Lock complex was interesting, including the Victorian Lockkeepers house and office and the 1823-24 Banqueting House (currently for sale), built as a meeting place for the members of the Ouse Navigation Company. The hawthorn lined exit cut was very reminiscent of those on the Thames. This was certainly cruiser territory with some that would easily match those on the Thames.

 

The river entry into York is delightful and we followed Nicholson’s recommendation that the best moorings are between Scarborough and Lendal Bridges. These are by the beautiful museum Gardens with York Minster only a short walk away. We spent a pleasant hour roaming the streets, including the Shambles, the street of the butchers. A tiny pub, The Golden Fleece, established in 1503, beckoned us for a drink before we headed for home. Everything we want to see is within a short walk of our moorings which is wonderful.

 

Next day the Railway Museum was our first port of call. It was only a short walk across the nearby Lendal Bridge, past an extensive intact section of the Roman walls that we have promised to walk before we leave town. The Railway Museum is a splendid structure in the grounds of the York railway station and housed in the vastly altered original huge repair sheds. Two replicas of Stephenson’s “Rocket” and an original predecessor were there, along with “Mallard” which holds the record steam engine speed of 126mph. Countless other engines and carriages were there, including a wartime austerity model built with 1/9 of the usual amount of steel but which served its purpose well. Particularly interesting were the Royal Trains, preserved in all their grandeur.

 

There was also a travel simulator which took you on a “ride” from London to Brighton in four minutes instead of the usual two hours, at a speed of 700+mph. We thought it would be fun to do so the four of us piled into the capsule, which looked rather like the nose of the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train). It certainly is a great museum and the educational facilities for children were wonderful.